Penalties in paintball and intent

[SlartyBartFast]

that is sort of the rule. if a player reports as "live" and is marked. he is considered as playing on. if a player is the last person, hangs the flag and is found to be marked, the grab and hang automatically go to the opposing team.

I KNOW that's how the rules as writte are enforced.

Reread what I posted. As far as I'm concerend, you're playing-on when your teammates are checking you before the hang or if you call yourself eliminated just before checking in.

If the ref has to catch you, the penalty should be WORSE.

[Lohman446]

I KNOW that's how the rules as writte are enforced.

Reread what I posted. As far as I'm concerend, you're playing-on when your teammates are checking you before the hang or if you call yourself eliminated just before checking in.

If the ref has to catch you, the penalty should be WORSE.

You are right. The situation puts th poster in clear violation of the rules that are written. The rules are pretty black and white. You are violating the rules and should be penalized - regardless of if you intended to or not.

We unfortunatly have to see giving penalties only to "cheaters". Did what I do constitute cheating? Perhaps it did in that I felt it and by the written rules, should have checked. What about the unfelt hits (which are rarer than people tell refs)? Doesn't matter. Penalizing someone does not label them a cheater, it labels them having violated the rules, through action or inaction, intentionally or not. We need to quit trying to read into intent.

[SlartyBartFast]

You are,

You've lost me man. What we have here is a failure to comunicate.

[TheShark]

If the ref has to catch you, the penalty should be WORSE.

In no other sport is a player required to enforce the rules upon himself. It is up to the refs to keep the players honest. I understand that right now we simply don't have the capability to properly ref a game of competitive paintball, especially larger matches like 7 on 7. IMO we need to work towards a better way to ref games, rather than trying to force self-regulation. Its an excersise in futility.

Look at the NHL, in previous years interference was the name of the game, skill players were being crushed, hooked, tripped, etc without even having the puck. Big bruiser defensemen could have their way with you if you even thought about driving to the net. The refs finally started making calls this year, and amazingly, the players stopped the dirty play, because they know there will be consequences.

If you asked ANY professional hockey, football, baseball, soccer player to call penalties on themselves, they'd laugh at you. Imagine a soccer taking someone out with a wicked slide tackle, standing up, and pulling out a yellow card on himself. It just doesn't and shouldn't need to happen, because the ref is there to call it.

[Lohman446]

You've lost me man. What we have here is a failure to comunicate.

Edited post for clarity

[SlartyBartFast]

In no other sport is a player required to enforce the rules upon himself.

Paintball isn't any other sport.

To change it to be any other sport is to give in to those that don't want to abide by the traditional rules.

If tournaments want to play on the basis of only what refs catch counts, let them. But, they should be held accountable to change their rules to reflect that reality.

To make it like any other sport is also impossible. Unless you have one ref per player. No other sport lacks a central point of action like paintball.

You don''t have to throw out the rulebook to enforce the rules as they stand and make players know there are concequences. With a tiny amount of ref education and little to no effort, you could easily double or tripple the number of playing-on penalties. That would certianly straighten out a lot of the abuse.

As for other sports being unsportsman like and pushing/breaking the rules, or leaving ALL officiating to refs, where is it written we have to lower ourselves to their level?

[MisterBones25]

Not only should you ahve walked off, you should have been penalized for playing on though. A risk you took when you turned and fired before looking.

i didnt actualy turn after he hit me. i knew he was coming and we shot each other at about the same time. i felt the hit then took another shot and broke on on him. i checked myself and told him he was clean as i walked off. now if the ref would have penalized me i would have taken it like a man and walked off as well. my situation was alittle diffrent than the compleat turning around after i am positive im hit. but i can see where you are comming from and do agree that someone who turns and shoots after being hit 3 or 4 times should be penalized.

[TheShark]

Paintball isn't any other sport.

To change it to be any other sport is to give in to those that don't want to abide by the traditional rules.

If tournaments want to play on the basis of only what refs catch counts, let them. But, they should be held accountable to change their rules to reflect that reality.

To make it like any other sport is also impossible. Unless you have one ref per player. No other sport lacks a central point of action like paintball.

You don''t have to throw out the rulebook to enforce the rules as they stand and make players know there are concequences. With a tiny amount of ref education and little to no effort, you could easily double or tripple the number of playing-on penalties. That would certianly straighten out a lot of the abuse.

As for other sports being unsportsman like and pushing/breaking the rules, or leaving ALL officiating to refs, where is it written we have to lower ourselves to their level?

I agree with you, my argument is flawed. 14 refs in a 7 on 7 match? You'd have a ref clogging every lane. It would be a total cluster****. This is an inherant flaw in paintball, and I believe one of the limiting factors that is preventing it from going to the next level of professional sports.

That said, there are examples of mainstream sports that have gotten around this problem. Take football for example: 4 refs, 22 players on the field. Penalties are called away from the ball all the time- Holding, offsides, etc. Hockey- Interference by its very nature is called away from the puck. Obviously the distance and fast paced nature of paintball presents dificult and different challenges for refs from the above examples, but I refuse to believe it is impossible to improve reffing to the point where players aren't held responsible for regulating themselves.

As I mentioned before, maybe the solution is not with additional refs, but with technology. In the mean time, of course I have no problem with the current rulesets and forced player self-regulation... its better than nothing. But the industry should constantly be working on ways to take the regulation out of the hands of players and giving refs the ability to do their job. Only then can paintball go to the next level.

[Lohman446]

i didnt actualy turn after he hit me. i knew he was coming and we shot each other at about the same time. i felt the hit then took another shot and broke on on him. i checked myself and told him he was clean as i walked off. now if the ref would have penalized me i would have taken it like a man and walked off as well. my situation was alittle diffrent than the compleat turning around after i am positive im hit. but i can see where you are comming from and do agree that someone who turns and shoots after being hit 3 or 4 times should be penalized.

Your trying to grey the line. Did you fire after a ball had broken on you? If you did, if the ref standing there sees it, you should be pulled one for one penatly. Its like coming into homeplate. Its not if the ball comes close before the foot is one the plate (or whatever part) it is does it. There is no grey rule. If you fired theres a penalty. Doesn't make you a cheater. We talk about discipline in football, it has a place in paintball to.

[hitech]

In no other sport is a player required to enforce the rules upon himself.

Yes there is, golf. And it's big and on TV.

[trains are bad]

leaving ALL officiating to refs, where is it written we have to lower ourselves to their level?

It's not lowering ourselves to their level, it's raising ourselves to their level. Allowing people that are playing the game and therefore have an obvious and uncontestable bias in who wins, do the reffing, is the most irresponsible thing a sport can do. Paintball is a joke.

[TheShark]

Yes there is, golf. And it's big and on TV.

Point taken, but does that really validate the same kind of self-regulation in paintball? With golf its more out of tradition than practicality. If a player hits a ball out of bounds and decides to simply not record the 2-stroke penalty, at the end of the day, that penalty is going to be assessed whether he likes it or not. A professional golfer can't cheat in golf, therefore his supposed self-regulation is meaningless.

Paintball on the other hand, obviously does not do well under this model.

[Lee]

I KNOW that's how the rules as writte are enforced.

Reread what I posted. As far as I'm concerend, you're playing-on when your teammates are checking you before the hang or if you call yourself eliminated just before checking in.

If the ref has to catch you, the penalty should be WORSE.

how much worse?

playing on is one for one. it's a clear penalty for an infraction. the penalty is asessed whether it's intentional or not.

and who says that when one player checks another before hanging the flag, that the player with the flag, if found to be hit, isn't penalized? that is a one for one since by rule that player is playing on.

heres what would happen if there were two players left, and one checks the other and finds a hit: a one for one is called, the game ends on a penalty. by rule, if a game ends on a penalty, the grab and hang are awarded to the opposing team.

[SlartyBartFast]

Point taken, but does that really validate the same kind of self-regulation in paintball?

Ok. I stand by everything I've already said, but I'll also put in a new perspective.

There is NOTHING different about rules in paintball or any other sport.

YOU the player are responsile for following the rules. The officials enforce only the penalties. Same concept in every single sport played in every single country, professional, amateur, or street pick-up.

[TheTramp]

Yeh, they got the points for me being eliminated, I still had one other live player on my team, who after my move hung the flag and got us the points for it. The point is, without that move, our ability to hang the flag was doubtful, it effected the outcome of the game.

Would you have called yourself out if you were the last player?