The Inside Out Game

The Inside Out game is the default strategy of most defensively oriented teams. It can also be a very effective tactic for any team. Conceptually the Inside Out game is a low risk, lane control, rotation denial strategy that follows up the initial breakout with staged bumps to secondaries accompanied by moves from further inside--out. For example, (using the PSP NJ layout) the widest player OTB on the pitside takes the MT. Two players remain at Home. When the MT player makes his next rotation--to the pin, the corner or the MD feeding the snake--one of the Home players fills the spot in the MT. (And if the gameplan dictates or circumstances allow when that player moves the remaining Home player may also fill the MT.) In this way the movement risk is lowered and the key lanes maintained. There are of course also various options that can be played out from the Inside Out formation like delayed breaks to the corners, etc. but those alter the risk involved. So one aspect of the Inside Out game is about player positioning and sequential and matching rotations to work players into outside positions. The other standard characteristic of the Inside Out game is the basic shooting lanes, which are also typically inside out, as the goal is to deny the opponent wide positions OTB and an Inside Out breakout permits 5 guns up laning. (And, if one or more opponent is eliminated OTB the Inside Out configuration can easily transition into offense with attacks up the center that cut down angles & distances in order to keep remaining opponents contained. It is in the transitions, and the time it takes a team to react, that you can see whether a team is defensive or offensive in their orientation. (And in the pro game every team will opt for the offensive transition but one of the distinctions between pro teams is how quickly and universally a team will effect the transition.) The object of the Inside Out game is to limit risk, control wide rotations by the opponent, get eliminations OTB & take early control of the field with the intention of progressively building on that foundation to get wide and/or work upfield and consolidate the initial advantage with superior angles as the mid-game transitions into the end game.

Okay, but what can you to do counter a team playing Inside Out? Or, what are the risks of playing Inside Out?

There are 3 basic counters to the Inside Out game; get wide, mirror the breakout or press a strong center attack. Inside Out's effectiveness is typically a direct corallary to how effectively it keeps an opponent from getting wide. Once the opponent is wide Inside Out becomes a disadvantage as it cedes all the best angles to the wide players who in turn play to contain and fix the positions of the team playing Inside Out. (This still devolves into gunfights initially but wide guns also make it easier for the opposition to push the wires too.) If the Inside Out team gives up the wires too easily it's time to switch tactics. A mirrored breakout ought to be self-explanatory. (If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.) And the strong center attack hits the Inside Out team where they are weakest as the basic strategy is to stay inside and shoot wide. A center attack is relatively easy to execute--or at least move players into position--and then its effectiveness depends on the element of surprise and the boldness of the attackers. Of the counter options getting wide is best--if it can be accomplished.

Conversely the risks of playing Inside Out are ineffective lanes OTB, ie; letting your opponent get wide early, being unprepared for a center attack and weak gunfighting skills and/or edge control. No tactic or strategy can overcome poor individual play and inferior skills. Playing Inside Out is a good option to have available but no single strategy is always going to be a winner.

Next time; Kaos Theory: How & Why Pure Offense Works. (Yes, I know I spelled "kaos" wrong.)

Baca's Mailbag: Lessons from Galveston?

Don wants to know--at least he wanted to know last week--if the Galveston pro game videos might be useful as film study for either the pro teams or divisional teams. (At the time he asked I hadn't watched any of the videos. I have now seen a fairly large representative sample.) The answer is an equivocating maybe. More definitively, and equally disappointing, there really isn't enough of the right kind of material to serve as useful film study.

But before I get into the details I have a request: Hey, Matty, how 'bout mixing up your booth partners in order to get reps from all the teams involved? There's nothing wrong with Matty & His All-Star Friends but maybe a little love for the rest of us? (Assuming the league is going to continue with the event videos.) I know, it's out there ... but it might work. Just saying.

The matches, or as I prefer to call them, the kinetic motive activities too often focused on elements of the action, even on the breakouts where a single team was featured or the split screen and camera angles couldn't keep all ten players in sight. The elevated camera view that encompassed most of the field was the most useful angle for film study. With film study I'm focusing on one of two s. Either I'm confirming my guys were attempting the play called and analyzing their execution and following thru to success or failure or I'm observing an opponent for patterns that may occur over the length of a match or things like tendencies exhibited by specific players. The patterns reflect either intentional or unintentional actions or routines that may be predicted beyond the patterns that are a nearly universal element of playing the format. For example, you don't need film study to know that if an opponent loses a corner player they are likely to try and re-fill the spot quickly. But film study (or live study for that matter) can tell you that #34 always goes to a particular prop OTB or that Team X shows a strong tendency to fill a particular prop on the delay or as a secondary move. Unfortunately, the way the match videos are edited they don't provide enough consistent info to make those sorts of determinations.

What the Galveston videos may provide is some how-to (or even some how-not-to) info for developing players on playing specific positions on the field. There is quite a lot of snake play in the videos as well as lots of shots of individuals playing particular props that might be useful to some players.

For any teams interested in film study let me suggest you focus the majority of your efforts on filming and analyzing your own team first. Knowledge of an opponent may provide useful information but the advantages gained are seldom the difference between winning and losing--though they can be. Breaking your own team down will deliver larger rewards, faster. The first priority is a team's ability to go out and execute their game plan. And while it's nearly impossible in practice to keep track of every detail and every player the capability of going back and reviewing film over and over can reveal weaknesses and mistakes that are easily missed otherwise but just as easily addressed when you become aware of them.

The Lazy Slacker Re-post of the Week

Kinda.
The following piece was written for and previously appeared in WELT digital magazine, the short-lived project from the folks who brought you PGi.

Moonbats, Drillbits & Semiauto

There is one subject that drives me to the brink of gleeful homicide--the blindly willful utter nonsense spouted by the "semi-auto" advocacy crowd. This includes a few friends of mine so y'all please feel free to delude yourselves that little bit more and believe I mean everybody but you.
It started when I was skimming a long thread at the Nation–yes, I realize I brought it on myself-- devoted to speculation about the (then) upcoming changes at the PSP. A few posters just had to toss in the opinion that what the PSP needed was preferably uncapped semi-auto. Everybody is entitled to an opinion–even an idiotic one–but this particular brand of paintball superstition is like being a member of the Flat Earth Society and really believing the Earth is flat. Or participating in Renaissance festivals because you are convinced you really are Richard the Lionheart reincarnate.

Hey Tulip, you're nutty as a fruitcake!

If you've been living in a cave maybe I better explain. Like Knights of the Round Table (or in this case, Empty Head) there are some die hard fantasists forever chasing the semi-auto Holy Grail of one pull, one shot. True semi-auto (as if such a beast existed in the era of the micro-processor and electronic gun) is a swell dream but fails to correspond with reality. The truth is the majority of diehards don't actually understand how their guns work even if they can use the right words to construct a coherent sentence. If they did they wouldn't be Knights of the Empty Head. For starters their trigger pull doesn't actually discharge their marker. The proprietary software in the micro-processor on their board 'reads' a signal from the switch – which can be any one of a number of different types of switches – and decides what to do about the received signal and the result can vary as widely as the parameters of the software allow. And, of course, within that process the micro-processor tells the gun when to shoot, not you. Then there are the assorted forms of actuation that are 'mistakes.' Stuff like bounce, both mechanical and switch. Every software package in the business has filters designed to minimize, to varying degrees, the 'mistakes.' But guess what. All you semi-auto is a skill clowns set your filters to the lowest possible 'legal' setting because, miraculously, your skill improves when the filters interfere as little as possible.
And it's even worse than you know because there are manufacturers who swear on your mother's life that their software is pristine and innocent and would never intentionally add a shot or three or six. After, of course, offering the standard pious disclaimer about user error. Yet it does–and many of you like it that way because you've worked ever so hard to develop your "skill." Still, these disciples of the true semi-auto continue to insist that semi-auto is pure paintball and that ramping is an evil corruption despite the indisputable evidence that all electronic guns add shots and the only real quibble is over the definition of intentional and unintentional.
One thing we can agree on is that if such a thing as true electronic semi-auto existed in the modern game it would be better than capped, ramping guns. But the place you gotta start to see that happen is with sufficient standardization across the manufacturers so that the gun you're shooting is essentially identical to the one Joe Bob is shooting. At that point you can reintroduce the idea of skill again. And trust me, most of you semi-auto worshipers wouldn't like that one little bit.

Measuring Skill Revisited: Movement vs. ROF

No worries. The last post, Skill is not enough, is still coming but in looking over the other "skill" posts the measuring skill post left out a fuller review of the movement vs. ROF debate that helped inspire these posts in the first place. (I was gonna address it in the next mailbag.) Instead I'ma revisit that discussion here and now and see if I can't explain the dynamic in such a way that y'all will go "D'oh!", slap yourself upside the head and quietly promise yourself you'll never disagree with me again. A tall order, I know.

First thing we must recognize is that movement versus ROF is not an isolated equation but it is the governing equation. All that means is that other factors play a role, too. Like the number of props on the field and the dimensions of that field. Imagine standing out in the open on an xball or 7-man field shooting at your opponents while they do the same back at you. With that many guns blazing away at such relatively close distances moving around may keep you alive for a bit but not for long. Not what you had in mind, is it? Expand the dimensions of that imaginary field a few acres and suddenly things have changed rather dramatically. Now you can wander about and if you're still or squat down or even lie down on occasion you may spot an opponent before they spot you but once the shooting begins--assuming you are within range--the ROF still quickly overwhelms the ability to move. So add some bunkers, perhaps something near 100, to your imaginary field. Spread them about. At a few acres though it's still an enormous field and the bunkers have quite a distance between them for the most part even though there are more than twice what you're used to. To our ability to move and shoot we've added cover. It's utility is admittedly limited because once a player gains cover on this big field there's not a lot of reasons to keep moving. Maybe it's time to shrink the imaginary field a bit. Is one acre still too big? How about the size of a football field? That field can be (mostly) covered from anywhere allowing for shooting paint like it's coming out of a mortar. On this field long range shooting really is like rain coming down. Back in the day we kept the paint coming and while we were aiming long range shooting was still mighty random. Of course the ROF was slower and less consistent, too.

Are we there yet? There was a time in the competitive game's development when the fields were around that size though 100 bunkers is too many. In fact, in 2001 at World Cup there were less than half that number of bunkers on any of the fields, including the hyperball fields. Bunker numbers were ballpark with current layouts only with more space between most of them than on the current field layout. Stay with your imaginary field just a little longer and imagine moving between bunkers in a game situation against guns ramping at 12.5 bps. Depending on the range of (and the number of) the shooter(s) it's manageable. Just. Some of the time. But as soon as the players are too close to each other the gaps between bunkers become almost insurmountable. And there aren't many, if any, blocking bunkers. Making a move on this field is a run out in the open. (Oh, yeah. These were 10-man fields. When you start trying to figure the ability of those guns to counter movement with their reduced ROF remember how many of them are on the field.)

Enough with the imaginary. The real debate, if such actually exists except in the minds of the stubbornly deluded, is if there are different combinations of the relevant factors; movement, ROF, #s of bunkers & field size that result in something like identical degrees of difficulty in playing the game. My position is that ROF is the controlling factor.

One last thing. A different approach. Why is movement considered a skill in paintball? [This is where you actually answer the question for yourself. Go on.] If you answered something like because there's really quite a lot involved like sliding, diving, running while gunning, crawling, timing and so on I have another question for you. Why does movement in the game entail all those variations? [Yes, answer this one, too.] Being a lazy slacker you might also have answered simply because it's difficult to do. And in answering why is it difficult we get to the crux of the issue. It's difficult because people are shooting at you. The more shooters and/or more paint flying about increases the risk of being hit and eliminated. Therefore the skill required to move is directly related to the degree of hazard posed by the opponents--and a significant part of the the risk is posed by the ROF. The less the risk the less the skill involved in making any move.

Measuring Skill

I probably could have added identifying skills as it's own post but I've chosen to give that subject a cursory review instead in order to put measuring skills into context. (Besides, most of y'all should have a fairly good idea what the list of paintball skills is.) The basis distinction to make is between skills (learned) and innate attributes which are mostly physical, like running speed, reflexes and hand/eye coordination. It's not quite that simple. of course. Take movement for example. Movement is a skill because when we talk about it in the context of competitive paintball it is more than the physical act of moving yet at the same time the ability to move effectively can certainly be enhanced by a player's natural attributes. A rough list of skills looks something like this; movement, body awareness (applies to both staying alive & playing your cover) and the group of gun-related skills; accuracy, laning, gunfighting, running & gunning, etc. The list could as easily be broken down further.

A skill (or skills) is measured against a standard, either an absolute or shifting standard, and or by comparison with the same skill displayed by others. This can be a simple or a complex problem in the evaluation (or comparison) process and is seldom cut & dry no matter how scientific (or statistical) the process appears. For example, take a look at starting pitchers in MLB. The bottom line is wins and losses but baseball is a team game and the pitcher must rely in part on teammates while competing against the opposing pitcher. So in evaluating the skill of a particular pitcher other statistics are considered as well. Like ERA, strike outs, walks, velocity, number of effective pitches and command of those pitches. But even with all the numbers experts can disagree when comparing player to player. It's one thing to evaluate a player's skills and determine they fit into category X. It's another thing altogether to compare two category X players and conclusively determine which one is better. (This is largely because skill isn't all that goes into making great players--and that's the subject of the last post in this series, Skill Is Not Enough. That, and different judges may have differing priorities when evaluating individual players.)

In paintball it's generally not too difficult to assess the relative skills of the players. This sort of measurement is really a way of sorting any group of players into a hierarchy, from worst to first. And (without experience) may not tell you anything about how good any group's best player(s) really are. You can tell from a player's posture in a prop whether they are trained or not, sloppy or tight--but you won't know how effectively they can bring their skills to bear until they are in a competition environment and confronted by others of varying degrees of skill. And the ultimate measure of a player's skills is the ability to execute in the crucible of competition--and, once again, this is not an issue of skill alone.
Another way of measuring the skill of a player is against an objective standard. When laning it's putting a stream of paint on target quickly enough to create the opportunity to eliminate a player. Successfully and repeatedly. Drilling to develop this skill demonstrates in concrete terms--either you hit the runner or you didn't--a player's effectiveness or lack thereof. The same measurement by standard applies in virtually all training situations and is one method of determining improvement.

Next, Skills Is Not Enough.

Deconstructing Skill

What constitutes a skill as it applies to competitive paintball? Yesterday's post illustrated that "skills" can change and be misunderstood so how do we first make a determination about what is a real skill and what isn't? Hitting a ball with a stick is not a useful skill in paintball but it is a recognized skill. In baseball. But I would go further and suggest that if the game of baseball didn't exist then hitting a ball with a stick would be considered a pointless waste of time, at best the province of idle children idling. If true, then a skill cannot be separated from the activity to which it applies. And we can define paintball skills generally as those actions and abilities that allow a player to most effectively play the game as defined by the rules.

Once upon a time football (the American version) did not have the forward pass as an offensive option. Football was a collegiate and intramural sport for 50 years before the forward pass was made legal and another 45 years passed before the basic rules we recognize today were established. And there was also a time when basketball didn't have a jump shot. The jump shot first appeared in the mid-30s but wasn't popularized by the NBA until the early 50s. Unlike football where the pass was acknowledged but illegal the jump shot was never banned, it simply wasn't invented until later in basketball's development. Imagine the transitional years with players arguing the merits of the set shot versus the jump shot. Today the very idea is ludicrous. Both the pass and the jump shot took time to become what they are in today's versions of their respective sports because the majority of players and coaches didn't comprehend their potential to change the game. Students of military history observe the same thing in the old adage that today's generals tend to fight yesterday's wars. And competitive paintball is no different.

Here's where I suggest, by way of a paintball example, another heresy--the diminished relevance of the snap-shot. Yes, it's a recognized skill of the game. And remains one today. It is one of many skills related to handling and using a paintball gun. As all of you certainly know the object is to discharge an accurate shot in as a brief a window of time as possible while maintaining the smallest target profile possible. It's a sexy skill in that it is widely understood to be more difficult to master than many other paintball skills. (Thousands of repetitive and frequently erroneous articles have been written about it.) In the modern Race 2 format especially the snap-shot has become a subset of gunfighting and more often than not you see the snap-shot utilized in competition when there are better alternatives (because the player is afraid or is struggling with the transition to gunfighting or is poorly trained) or because a given player is getting low on paint. The weaknesses of the snap-shot are that it resets to a neutral posture every time and is incapable of maintaining edge & lane control. Any player caught up in a snap-shooting contest with an opponent reduces his (her) potential for success by giving up any advantage that might have been gained taking a prior shot(s)--unless of course your opponent was eliminated. Against players of equal skill the snap-shot is a roll of the dice whereas effective gunfighting improves the odds of success.

Next time, Measuring Skill.

Skills Evolve

A long, boring title for a possibly long & boring post. You've been warned. Proceed at your peril. Nope. It was but I've changed it. That's because I'm cutting this post into at least four separate posts; Skills Evolve, Deconstructing Skill, Measuring Skill & Skill is Not Enough. I got a decent way into this post and realized all you slackers with attention deficit disorder were gonna short out and slip into a coma or go on a thrill killing spree and I don't want that on my conscience so the rest of y'all are stuck with multiple postings.

Let's begin with crawling. (Gotta crawl before you can walk, right?) Old Skool crawling was a fundamental skill for maneuvering unseen on a very large (by today's standards) wooded field. In the modern competition game crawling (actual crawling) has largely been reduced to snake play. In playing the modern snake a snake player's position may or may not be known--other than the player is in the snake. In this comparison the physical act of crawling remains the same--as does the purpose--acquisition of an advantageous position from which to eliminate the opposition. The change is in the environment. Of course it's not a small or minor change. Where the Old Skool crawler could use the skill nearly anywhere on the field the modern snake player is limited to the snake. And where the Old Skool crawler required stealth to succeed the snake player needs to be fast & fearless. Chances are the Old Skool crawler and the modern snake player would neither enjoy or be very good at swapping roles.

Now let's consider the trigger pull. Some of you lament the loss of this skill. (I am so tempted to put quotation marks around skill when we talk trigger pull but I won't in deference to your girlish sensibilities.) Some of you still think it's a skill ('cus it's the only one you got.) But seriously. No. Really. I'll stop. Back in the day, in the era of mechanical triggers, you had had all sorts of different means of actuation and a cottage industry in trigger mods all trying to make the pulls soft and short enough so that newbies didn't break their fingers trying to play paintball. For one thing almost nobody touted their skill at pulling a trigger. Their interest was more practical. And for another thing--I hate to break it to you skills guys--if there is no baseline any claim to a skill is, you know, silly. And once the guns were electropneumatics actuated by a software interface players who couldn't get 5 or 6 balls a second out of a blade frame cocker are suddenly pulling 15 or 16. It's amazing how good so many of you got all of a sudden. Now, while you're still hyperventilating answer this question: What was the benefit of the trigger pulling skill? What's the first thing that comes to mind? No, not waffles--or was that just me? Putting more paint in the air. Increasing your ROF. Because more paint equals more control.

At this stage of competitive paintball's development skills are evolving. (And going extinct.)

Tomorrow, yes, tomorrow! look for Deconstructing Skill.

Robots versus Ninjas, Part 2

Given that the most recent related post, Robots vs. Ninjas (Part 1) is a month old already here's a linked list of the related posts in chronological order; Saving Xball, Defining the Game, An Informal Survey, Robots vs. Ninjas, Part 1 if you'd like to catch up or refresh your memory. If not I'll be happy, no thrilled, to summarize the previous posts for all you lazy slackers. Like hell I will. Exercise your finger and click your mouse.

Robots vs. Ninjas, Part 1 puts the differences between the two dominant formats into perspective–though with the bankruptcy of Pacific Paintball the differences, both real and apparent, are rather a moot point. Xball, of one sort or another, is the competitive paintball format for the foreseeable future. The issue now becomes if Xball promotes a certain kind of player–and, broadly defined, I think it does–is it the kind of player we want? And if it isn't what can be done about it? In one sense the robots vs. ninjas debate is resistance from the traditionalists to what they perceive as a diminished game or a less desirable game than the one they played. Without arguing the merits it is important in moving forward to define what the game should be and then what are the skills and abilities required to compete effectively. Or perhaps vice versa. Start with the play of the game as players and go from there in building the game around the desired skills and abilities.
Let's take a brief look at the Russian Legion as their example is instructive. The Legion burst onto the international pro scene on the basis of a new-to-paintball method of training players. It inspired imitation (to varying degrees) and has had a significant impact on competitive paintball. Their methodology also is (was) clearly better suited to the Xball format than to 7-man. The abbreviated reason for this is in Xball it is possible to prepare for, and exert some influence over, more aspects of the actual play of the game than in 7-man. (It is the element of relative unpredictability (more or less) in 7-man that is the missing element for many of the traditionalists because within the window of unpredictability there exists more time and more freedom to make individual play of the game decisions.) For the Legion then the status quo would seem to be ideal yet in recent seasons they have moved to a roster mix that is nearly evenly split between U.S.-based players and Russians.
So what do we want? What should separate the best from the rest? Is it purely gun skills? Physical tools? Something else? Something more? If we can't define the skill set(s), both physical and mental, that comprise the ideal player the players will still be subject to forces that shape their development. Those forces are our training routines and the rules of the game we play.
Paintball has been developing more sophisticated training methods but still relies heavily on scrimmaging. This isn't unreasonable but it is inefficient. Scrimmaging is a necessary element but it is very paint intensive and is only a valuable learning tool when conducted by knowledgeable players and/or coaches focused on learning and improving. It easily reduces to just playing paintball, which is more fun but not always very productive.
Right now in the U.S. there is a bias toward scrimmaging regardless of other factors. In part that is because that is how it's 'always' been done. And among the pros the growing scarcity of resources and time for practice forces hard decisions and tends to push teams toward the familiar. And finally the early release of competition layouts makes the scrimmage imperative. No team would willingly cede practical knowledge of and familiarity with the competition layout when they are convinced their competition will have that knowledge and familiarity. If the layout is available it must be played.
In the short term the only viable way to have a dramatic impact in shaping the ideal player is to not release the layouts in advance. (Here I'm really focusing on the pro–and new semi-pro–division where the impact would be the greatest.) This is so because we are in an era of mostly very limited resources and as a consequence less time to prepare. And until (if ever) paintball can boast real professionals the time, resources and commitment will always be an issue. The non-release would free up the teams to develop different training regimes that would focus on a player's adaptability and capacity to read the changing field and react on the fly. The physical skills would remain the same but this change would dramatically alter the mental game and it's application to the Xball format. The result would be a much more demanding and intense game given the speed Xball tends to promote. (You'd eventually have better players and a better game. IM not very HO, of course.) There would also be a variety of other, I think, positive results as well from this one change.

This post takes some shortcuts in the interest of brevity (can you believe it?) and may as a consequence be a fairly demanding read. If you have any questions or just want to be argumentative don't hesitate to post a comment.

Yes, I know what I posted on Saturday. Get off my back. It's still Saturday somewhere in the South Pacific, right? You know, the whole international dateline thing.

Robots versus Ninjas

Time flies when you're blogging and so this post is about two weeks late, give or take, but now that it's here, who cares, right? For a quick refresher on the topic go here. Now that you're up to speed it's full throttle robots v. ninjas. The argument aimed by the ninjas (proponents of 7-man) against the robots (xball players) is both ironic and misguided. The core of it is that coaching turns the xball player into a robot simply following commands and if that wasn't bad enough these same coaches kill the ninja style of play by making game-breaking run-thrus almost impossible. At least the kind where the player making the move also survives. This view has a lot of advocates not least a chunk of the Middle Skool pros–those guys whose careers span most of the out-of-the-woods era of competitive paintball and perhaps even a few Old Skoolers. Doesn't however make them right.
Coaching is communication. And communication is a basic tennant of competitive paintball going deep into the forests of yesteryear. No one objects to a back player rolling his gun and telling his insert to make the move they worked out before the game started. Yet when a coach tells a player to go–bumping a gap in the snake or the like it's the ruination of the game. The plain truth is the xball player still must have the full complement of individual skills in order to be successful. All that those within the sound of the coach's voice get extra is information about the unfolding point. And more and more the notion of a coach "operating" a player, any player, like his robot is failing the practical test–it doesn't work very well and most of the time that's not the focus of the coaching going on–which is simply to provide more info in a changing environment. (The obvious "secret" to neutralizing coaching is rate of change; how fast things keep happening.) Even so, coaching can and does alter some things and it's a fair debate to question just how much. That said, coaching never eliminated anybody or stopped a single run-thru.
The real argument is over the nebulous skill called timing. Timing being that sense a player either develops or doesn't of when to do things though it's usually associated with making moves, judging the opportune moment and going for it. Hence the objection to robot-like players and "ruined" run-thrus. Of course the critical element that made (makes) timing valuable is LACK of information.
The irony in the whole argument is that xball has altered all of competitive paintball in ways those making the argument have apparently failed to recognize.
You gotta crawl before you can walk or run. Remember the example in the original post of how crawling has changed? 15 years ago crawling was the ninja style of paintball. And what changed it? The game environment.
How long has 7-man been a major format in the U.S.? Less than a decade or about the same amount of time as xball has been around. Is 7-man a more natural progression from the prior generation's 10-man than xball is? I think that's a fair statement but neither format is played the way 10-man was in the past. 10-man was a gun dominant game. Yes, the same basic rules applied and peeps worked for angles, moved up field etc. but the guns controlled the rhythm of the games and the first teams to push the pace were changing the way the game was played. I'd start the transition with Image followed by Dynasty but you might want to throw in turn-of-the-century Shock and old Lanche, too. (I've often wondered if the early electronic cheats weren't motivated by a desire to reestablish the old order of the game. Okay, too philosophical and not to the point.)
Regardless Dynasty epitomized the new game of speed and movement and xball formalized it with a tiny unforgiving field of play that demands skills sharpened to a knife's edge.
For those of you who've been around long enough the differences in the 7 minute 7-man game of today from even the last incarnation of 10-man is pretty stark and the style of play and broad skill sets demanded of players today owe far more to xball and teams like Dynasty than they do to the historic game.
There are no robots or ninjas, only ways to play the game that demand a different balance of skills. [Which reminds me, one of the better ways to introduce rookies to tourney ball would be on larger scale fields.]
I've little doubt this debate will continue but the important part of all this isn't who is right or wrong in the robots versus ninjas debate. The lesson is that so far in paintball's brief history very little prior consideration has been given to the consequences of the changes being made. Or the corallary that future changes will, whether intended or not, mold and shape the game in new and different ways. And, lastly, that any contemplated change should be rigorously examined for its likely consequences before being instituted.

Defining the Game

Decided the last post was too much of a downer to skip out on for the rest of the week. Chances are I won't post during Cup but I will have a computer with me just in case I change my mind or something good comes up.

I'm frequently amused by the ongoing "debate" over what is the superior format as it usually devolves into robots vs. ninjas. You know, Xball versus 7-man from the proponents of 7-man. The Xball side usually musters the effective rebuttal, "Is not." And so it goes.
I'm not interested in arguing the relative merits of the formats, so I won't. But I do have one word for all you robots and ninjas.
Crawling.
You see, when competitive paintball left the woods it eventually left some things behind, like crawling. Oh, not right away and not altogether but what an Old Skooler thinks of when he thinks crawling in a paintball context isn't the crawling most of you know. And the distinction is instructive.
The introduction of hyperball began the intentional move out of the woods. Even so early hyperball fields were specifically designed to incorporate elements of play that acknowledged the then accepted skill set of competition paintball--and it included crawling. In time airball altered the game some more--but again, where do you think the notion of a snake came from? Crawling. So, in a sense we still incorporate crawling as an accepted (and valued) skill in competition paintball but it isn't really anything like it once was. As the competition environment changed so did the skill and its utility.
There are more than a few insights to be drawn from the example of crawling as it applies to the whole robots versus ninjas debate. I'll leave you to think on it and next week I'll get into in depth until I make you cry, 'Uncle.'