An interesting thought of.... ummmm, well just read

[Meph]

I'm not sure, but some of us remember back in the day. All..... 2years ago(ish). The arms race was really at sort of a stand-still. Only hoppers really available was the Revolution, nobody bought eggs because they were garbage. Ricochet just hit the market.

I think shortly after is when this arms race really got it's biggest "jump-start" since the Shocker and Angel came onto the market.

Because it was basically all limited to gravity still. Revvy feed 30bps? Haha, yeah right! That was a dream. Hell, even 20bps was dreamed impossible by most and a "It'll never happen, and if it does won't be allowed" type of situation.


Then in a very short swoop, the Halo comes out followed closely by the NPPL lifting the ban on "force-fed hoppers." They felt, remember, that "Nobody can shoot faster than 13bps, so we'll allow them." Yeah, remember those days? When no human could ever shoot faster than 13bps, except obviously RT mag or 98RT or even Factory F/A people (yes, some of us still are around). And even if they could, originally the hopper still limited the cycles. Even if there was a, oh....... let's say 40bps marker! No hopper could feed that fast.

Well now that the Halo's out, NPPL lifted the ban, BE comes out with a newer, better egg. Then of course the Halo is upgraded to belt-driven to feed even FASTER than originally. BE upgrades the board to make Egg feed faster. Halo new software too. Empire has their own Halo coming out. All of these to feed the beasts, and all since the NPPL lifted that force-feed ban.

Well the human can still not pull past 13bps right? Simply add in bounce settings and suddenly we have people OUTSHOOTING these damn hoppers! NOW we have BE making their Envy to feed 27bps, and Qloader with 30bps. Every marker on the market now must have WAS or Chaos or some sort of trigger-enhancing system to let people shoot faster than they physically can. Markers are now advertising in their manuals to not set the bounce too low or else they could get a full-auto effect even! Yet that's what people are doing.

It's all one giant spiral effect. Started with pumps. From bolt-action to adding simply a pump handle! To then autotrigger. To then 2-pumps mounted on 1 handle like the Deuce. To semi-automatic. To full-auto. To electronic. To bouncing electronics. It's all continuing, one giant spiral.

And it doesn't include just the arms race. Clothing and paddings. Padding there for what, to protect joints and such from impact. Not anymore. Masks are being made softer, pads are being sewn into the clothing. Pads are being made larger. Remember when it was just elbow pads and knee pads? They morped to now engluf the forearm and shin, those need to be covered. Even the shoulders are now needing to be covered in padding.

They make more pads, they make markers that shoot faster. If the paint is bouncing off, need to make it more brittle. If the paint is then breaking, they need to make SOFTER pads. Paint is bouncing off again, need to make markers shoot faster and paint even more brittle. People have to shoot even more and more paint to get it to break on their ever growing and softening padding.

See the spiral? I highly doubt there's going to be an end to it anytime soon. The industry and leage promotors aren't going to do anything about this. The industry profits from it to make the latest and greatest padding, or electro firing AT LEAST 20bps or else it won't even sell. The promotors to these league events won't do anything since the people who pay and sponsor the events are the paint manufacturers, the electro-marker manufacturers, the clothing manufacturers. Basically the sponsors are the people who are making the stuff to profit from.

If the promoters even dared to cap bps, to cap hoppers, to cap padding.... you and I both know that the supporting sponsor money would suddenly start to trickle away! Adding to this spiral even further.

Honestly, has this industry pushed itself too far to recover from this? And even if they could...... would they try or want to recover? Would the players even accept it considering how the current state is today?

[Woogie12]

You made a very good and frightening point. You are correct, if the paintball companies and the nppl put the no-force fed hoppers ban into effect, or if boards were capped, the paintballing community would be in outrage. I think we may have very well pushed it too far to go bad. It's sad to say but I don't believe that ROF will stop increasing. ROF will probably just keep going up until insurance companies step in.

[Spaceman613]

Simple solution... Different classification brackets

Unlimited (like it is now)

mechanical or no force feed hoppers (either use a mech, or an electro without force feed)

pump

stock

Make a bracket in nppl or psp or whatever to allow a mech /no force feed bracket.

or at least i think it would be fun to see... kinda like different divisions at the dragstrip.

[shartley]

Good post!

Originally posted by Spaceman613
Simple solution... Different classification brackets

Unlimited (like it is now)

mechanical or no force feed hoppers (either use a mech, or an electro without force feed)

pump

stock

Make a bracket in nppl or psp or whatever to allow a mech /no force feed bracket.

or at least i think it would be fun to see... kinda like different divisions at the dragstrip.

I agree with this.

I will also point out that the majority of paintball players will NEVER enter into a tournament. NUFF said.

[Crighton]

All of which makes me glad that I play 95% of my games at a private field with a good group of close knit people.

[TheTramp]

I thought that teh NPPL had ruled that some of the newer clothes broke their padding rules. Didn't one company say that they would be reducing the padding after they'd put out a rediculous shirt that was specificly designed with unresonable padding.

[GT]

Originally posted by Spaceman613
or at least i think it would be fun to see... kinda like different divisions at the dragstrip.

good post bro!,
This will be the future of paintball. Different classes for different styles of game. I am not going to spend more time learning how to "walk" 20bps on an electro than playing the game

ROF will probably just keep going up until insurance companies step in.

WHEN someone gets killed. Trust me it is only a matter of time. With the number of electros in peoples hands and more folks in the game its simply a matter of when and not if....

[Miltonyz]

It's called progress or evolution buddy. I swear sometimes that AO is filled with a bunch of Luddites. "Burn the new technology it's evil".
If I can find more padded clothing legally I would be stupid not to. In responce to paint companies make more fragile paint. The net effect is zero but you must adapt or die. I gtg I'll post more later.

[shartley]

Originally posted by Miltonyz
It's called progress or evolution buddy. I swear sometimes that AO is filled with a bunch of Luddites. "Burn the new technology it's evil".
If I can find more padded clothing legally I would be stupid not to. In responce to paint companies make more fragile paint. The net effect is zero but you must adapt or die. I gtg I'll post more later.

[fallout11]

There's more crime now than years ago.

Does anyone think that is "evolution" or "progress" also?

[Brophog]

Originally posted by Miltonyz
It's called progress or evolution buddy. I swear sometimes that AO is filled with a bunch of Luddites. "Burn the new technology it's evil".
If I can find more padded clothing legally I would be stupid not to. In responce to paint companies make more fragile paint. The net effect is zero but you must adapt or die. I gtg I'll post more later.

That's the point. The net effect is zero.

You only need the padded clothing to shield you from the many paintballs. You only need the many paintballs so that one will break on the padded clothing.

Its cyclic, that's Meph's point.

[fallout11]

Yes, and by definition of the word cyclic, never ending.
It's also escalating. As some have correctly pointed out, and unending "arms race".

But all things (at least in this universe) are finite.
A limit will eventually be reached.

The only question is whether this will be an artifically imposed limit (such as rate of fire caps, ammo limitations, or restricted "classes") or a accidentally or naturally occuring one remains to be seen.

[Digits]

Originally posted by gtrsi


good post bro!,
This will be the future of paintball. Different classes for different styles of game. I am not going to spend more time learning how to "walk" 20bps on an electro than playing the game



WHEN someone gets killed. Trust me it is only a matter of time. With the number of electros in peoples hands and more folks in the game its simply a matter of when and not if....

I dunno.. People use to wear just goggles, not even full masks, and no one died then.. It's very unlikely someone would die from a paintball being fired at 300 fps or less, but if people start raising that, the chances also raise. And ya with the fast electros if you catch 15 balls in the adams apple that would possible kill you, but again thats unlikly.. If you got hit there once your natural instinct would either be to grab your neck, or tuck your chin in.. And this reaction would happen very fast so catching even 3 in the adams apple would be a rare thing.. Also, I doubt any gun could put 15 balls on top of eachother like that..

But your right, someone will probablly die before people realize this is excessive..

[IWANTMOREMAGS]

There is a bps limit.If balls are getting close enough to each other that they can touch outside the barrel of a gun, will the nppl raise the fps limit? No. The NPPL and other leagues I predict will soon set a led foot down on these rules and will never change them. I think soon enough they will enforce a padding rule. They already have one at my local park.

[Miltonyz]

I guess the difference is in the perspective. I see nothing wrong with the cyclic motion. I don't know why Meph considers it a bad thing. It's just natural and continues in everything. I ride dirtbikes and the same argument could be made that even though the technology has improved a hundred fold all bikes are pretty much equal. But that ignores the fact that even if they are equal now they are many times superior to past models.

I would argue that trying to improve your game skills will help you more in the long run

I'll be the first to tell you that I suck at paintball Shartly no harm there. But the fact is paintball has a degree of luck to it. I as an inferior player has gotten a lucky shot on many players better then me. I've seen our local Rookie team somehow max a amatuer team filled with superior players. My point is that I see no problem with a player trying to "maximize" his luck with bouncier clothes. I don't buy them because for me they are not worth the money, but to a player who wanted every edge possible it's worth it.

Again the same thing in dirtbiking. There is guys that go out there with 750 dollar suspension jobs, an extra 500 dollars put into their motor that are just plain going to suck. I saw a guy race a local race in the "B" class with an 88 Kx250. The bike was a doggy piece of crap but he managed to beat most of the pack just with superior riding skills. What irritates me about paintball is that people seem to think you have to pay your "dues" before you can use top of line stuff. Whether or not somebody is a poor player or not is irrelevant. If he wants to use a 1500 gun I don't see why people look down upon them.


Sometimes a particular path taken leads in failure. That is good, because then you know that only the strong designs survive. If one super fast plane design proves unwieldy you don't quit trying, you redesign