vBall

Let's face it, speedball is broken. The sport is dying and the formats available right now aren't particularly exciting to watch. They are also very difficult to film and lack tactical variety or enough "big moments". This is an idea for a format I've been throwing around that aims to address most of the problems with tournament paintball formats these days. As I haven't playtested it it's hard to say how successful it could be, so I'm putting it up online in case anyone wants to have a go at it. Bear in mind this is an extremely rough first draft.

It should ideally have the following effects on gameplay:

  • More aggressive. You can't win by sitting back and shooting ropes.

  • More athletic. You don't get much of a break when you're hit.

  • More of a focal point – the players at the front will take this role as they are the ones who will score. Scoring will always happen in the face of opposition, expect insane dives for the line and a more exciting game to watch and play in general.

  • Less pissing around. Get hit off the break? Doesn't matter, you'll be breaking out again in probably less than a minute!

  • More ways to win. Left side not working for you? Try moving up the right to score. Do you send one runner and have lots of fire support, or send everyone up in the hope of one or two getting through? When you're down on points, rushing is one of the best tactics because you could get 3 or 4 if people get through! Rather than just shooting everyone, what about tying them down and sneaking someone through the gaps? Or, shoot everyone and rush before they have time to get back to their gate and rebreakout. Tactical variety is the name of the game.

Anyways, here are the basics of the rules as they stand.

Two teams, 5 a side. Standard raceTo size field, but maybe more bunkers in the center.

Goal: get any player into the opposing endzone alive. The endzone spans the width of the field, much like football. Every player that does this = one point

Reinsertion: once three players are in the deadbox for a team they may all reinsert at once. When time is called for the end of a set, the set continues without reinsertions until all players have either scored or been eliminated. Players may swap with other players while in the deadbox. The deadbox is in the same place as the start gate.

Time: the game is played in six five minute sets with an 8 minute halftime and three minutes between sets. Total game length = 50 minutes (convenient for scheduling matches)

Tie: in the event of a tied game, there will be a sudden death 5v5 elimination game to decide. The only goal in a tiebreaker is to eliminate the other team.

Reffing and penalties: Minor and Major. Minor: playing on without affecting the game, playing on with an unobvious hit, talking when eliminated. Major: wiping, talking back to refs, playing on and shooting someone while playing on. Minor = player sits out until the following reinsertion (the one after they'd be in if they were fairly eliminated). Major = two players do the same. Gross penalties are for throwing guns and assault etc. and result in suspensions.

Thoughts? It'd be much, much simpler to ref than the joke that was moneyball, and it's a zillion times simpler in general than what Baca Loco is proposing for Bacaball.

The key will be tuning the number of bunkers/players/reinsertion limit/field size to make sure that teams can score often enough to get an average points per set of, say, 5 per team. It could easily be too difficult to score because there will almost always be opposing players on the field when you do, which is why I've let the whole width of the field count in the endzone. Bunker positioning might take care of this too.

Comments

  1. RePeteJanuary 25, 2011 at 2:44 PM

    "...The sport is dying..."

    I know it is just my personal perspective, but how can anyone afford to play any more?

    ReplyDelete

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