The Wild World of TB!

Simply put, that form is awesome.

I love the Form all place's should use it

As stated above me, that form is awesome and needs to be adopted by more fields so the fucking paste eaters have nothing to bitch about anymore.......

sad that it has to be written down

Sad......but isn't this way we played scenario in the beginning? It was all about "in your face", playing hard, honor and sportsmanship above all....all the time.

It's the "pussification" of our entire country. Looks like a team up in the Midwest is finding out that paintball isn't the EXTREME sport that we all thought is was.

To the producers and field owners: The first part of the word paintball is PAIN. It does hurt a little bit to get hit by a projectile at 280 FPS. Stop trying to market our sport to every warm body. Not everyone is cut out to play paintball. BIG DEAL! I'm not cut out to play tennis, unless they start to let me do full body checks and smack some bitches with my racket. It's just not intense enough for me. I don't see Reebok lobbying to change the rules so ^Hawk^ will start playing tennis, and so they can sell another racket.

If people want the thrill of hunting people and shooting people without the sting of a paintball, go play laser tag or nerf guns.

motherhen, no. I was there. It was the same bubbly, make sure they're having as much fun as you are speeches, that it's always been... coupled with abstract ideas of sportsmanship and honor that vary widely between person to person.

Pretty much always been that way, at least until recently.

Amen Hawk,

I am tired of the bullshit. Twice this year my team was asked to take a break from the scenario just so the otherside could catch up. Come on give me a break. This is why we no longer play those two fields.

"unless they start to let me do full body checks and smack some bitches with my racket"

Tennis would rock if they allowed this! I could actually watch it on tv...lol

Taz, there's a solution for that. The game needs 100% transparent mechanics that don't nerf the winning team, but temporarily buff the losing team, like doubling their insertion window, until they can make up a small portion of the point deficit.

People don't get asked to stand down, everything is very plain and up front, not subject to promoter manipulation, and more paintball is played. Everybody wins.

It's similar to the rubber-band theory of game balance in Mario Kart, except toned down. Last place magically can't slingshot into first, but they're not beaten down unmercifully either without being given a small opportunity to not get their ass kicked so bad.

Indy,

It's all "feel good". Why should I bust my ass running all over the field doing everything under the sun to get that mission done to get those points, only for there be a rubber-band effect that slowly but surely allows it to be competitive again? I understand the thought and ideal of competion and giving your all, but why bother playing to the max if everything you do will slowly deteriorate? Why not do just enough to stay ahead of the other side, but not enough to cause the rubber-band stuff to kick in?

Basically, it's "your getting you ass kicked, so I'll give you a little somethin'-somethin' to help make you feel good because your getting to play and shoot people."

And trying to balance sides doesn't work. To use game terms, you can nerf something, but people will always use or do something else to overcome that something or someone getting nerfed.

Nice post Hawk. I agree with most of it as well as most of Indys points.

However, there is a lot to be said about ensuring even teams.

I don't care who recruits who, or who wants to play where. Some times you just have to suck it up and play on the other side.

Additionally, by the verbage of the stated rules, rule 11 countermands half the other rules from a certain POV.

lone, having balanced teams and seen all of the complaints, it's pretty much the only reasonable solution.

balancing teams works kinda-sorta if some teams don't decide to "phone it in", but then people want to play with friends, then they form mega teams and roll 100 deep. That eventually hurts attendance and decreases the talent pool of people worth playing against. forget the nubs, you have less overall people that are a challenge.

When you directly nerf people by asking them to stand down, you get less later attendance, and a smaller player pool. Same effects as side balancing.

When you very lightly, temporarily buff one side, then nobody is actually nerfed. It answers every complaint. It does not do it for them, but the losers get a chance to restore their morale a touch. Nobody is asked to stand down. People that want to compete will have a higher number of people to compete against then while doing missions, and at future games. Do you seriously enjoy just racking up points, standing in an uncontested area finishing missions? Yeah you're winning, but you're not really playing or testing yourself against anybody. The guys that hemmed up the other team are, but unless you're those guys, it's pretty damn boring. If you choose not to go all out for points, than that's ultimately your choice. At least you have a say in it, whereas in the last 2 solutions, you had none at all.

Perfect? No. Better solution than the rest? Yes.

Then whats to keep me from playing to a point and not allowing the "rubber band" to kick in? It'd be easy to kick ass all game long and not let it kick in.

Either way, it's not fair to the commander who has their shit together and does what is necessary to win a game. You swing from one thing to the next. You are penalizing the side that did/is doing what is necessary to win and pull it out.

Call it what you want "rubber band" "very light nerfing" etc, I call it a crutch.

And no, it doesn't answer every complaint. Because then, like I said earlier, you have commanders with their shit together being penalized because they are ready. I for one would bitch and complain about it.

You can't please everyone and fix all complaints, or else you end up with everyone pissed off.

I am waiting for the game to arrive were we have 2 commanders with a 30 man "Core" team each ( of their own choosing)

Every other players name gets tossed into the hat for a 8AM drawing.

commanders get 3 hours to get ready and "GAME ON!"

make the entire game invite only if needed...but lets mix it up , bust up teams, force players out of the comfort zone.

Lone, if every general was committed, then game mechanisms wouldn't be needed. Fact is, some people can't cut it. Some generals treat it like a Space Shuttle mission. Some show up and stand in a box, reading off cards. There is absolutely no way to control any of that, and you don't really know what's happening until a few hours into the game.

It's real easy to look through a single-view lens. "We're winning, we're organized, fuck you." I can appreciate that. It makes a flawed assumption though, that both generals are on the same page. That's very rare.

...what happens to somebody that showed up to win.. but got stuck with a general that's an idiot? Should their game play be penalized because of the incompetence of somebody else? Why should they have to stand there and play kick the pole for 5 minutes every 30 and just wait on a final battle?

They paid the same as you. They're just as motivated, they want to compete, but random draw condemned them to a game with no hope. What the hell is fair about that? What's their motivation to come play again? Win it next time? Maybe get fucked over by random draw? They just paid for entry, air, paint, odds & ends, food, and often travel that costs twice the event's rates. Some can handle that, most can't. Only thing keeping that customer is promoter's bullshitting. The end result is small or no games.

I take exception to calling a simple game balance mechanism that you've never seen or tried a nerf. A nerf is a reduction in your capabilities. My take on it would apply none whatsoever. No "ask nicely but if you don't I'll punish you" stand downs, no lightning rods of lemuria (if you don't know what that is.. you shouldn't be in this conversation), no magic missions, no score manipulation. If one side is down 4 to 1 in points and hasn't finished a mission in 2 hours, their hospital window goes up 25-50% or whatever the setting is so they can maybe, hopefully, get some more of their beaten and demoralized bodies onto the field so that you can play more of the game instead of staring at empty objectives. Pretty simple and straight forward, and the only reasonable solution in an era of base camping.

Time to ramble a bit more, need a break from coding.

Here's a totally different way to look at it. Games have difficulty levels. Why? Because different people play at different skill levels. In a tournament, this is done by divisions. No mechanism exists for this in scenario play.

In oh say... Rock Band, easy guitar players use 3 keys, medium uses 4, hard uses 5. Each difficulty level generally has twice as many keys as the one before it.

So, you have a situation where one side in a scenario is clearly superior to the other. That's not fair to the side being trounced. They paid, they should get to play as much. Punishing you for being too good is a terrible, terrible approach. Every super-achieving faction wants a perfect game, 100% missions complete. Pulling you away and preventing it is an unfair solution. You're double screwed, because as the promoter/writer/whatever I failed. I did not provide you with a great enough challenge.

The only 2 solutions left are to let the chips fall where they may.. it works, kinda, but as we've seen, social pressure will beat it. Overall, it's simply bad business. Somebody gets screwed. I've seen it. TB has seen it. Hawk has seen it. I'm willing to bet everybody who reads this has either seen it or actually done it to somebody.

Now, I sat down and read papers about super-achieving individuals, their personalities, and the best methods for dealing with them. These papers came straight from NASA psychologists.

The only way to approach super-achieving individuals is to do so in a completely fair, open, and transparent manner, no matter what process is involved. If you do not do this, morale will suffer. As customers, they vote with their wallet when they feel they are disrespected.

That's led me to the following conclusion: The only way to satisfy all players is for a totally transparent, mild insertion window buff system for a side being trounced. Everybody knows when it cuts on. To an extent, if everybody is on the same page, you can even control it if you decided to forgoe your perfect game (which most super-achievers will do). The numbers are not manipulated mid-game. No magic missions, no props, no super powered players. The super-achieving, by far the most dangerous players with the greatest effect on the game, must view this as an increasing difficulty level and greater challenge to be overcome. Unfair, hidden mechanisms kill that peace of mind.

Who wouldn't want to both pull off a perfect game, while reducing the other team to "easy mode" for 22 of the 26 hours? The goal has always been the same. Crush them as hard as you can. It's been done... a lot. Why not dynamically increase the difficulty for yourself in a totally transparent manner, that you have control over, that only kicks in if the sides were horribly unbalanced to begin with?


What do I know though? I think all games should have at least 3 full sides... have linked venues with diplomacy and a virtual market... and all the generals use laptops. That, and I "don't even play" :)

Indy, interesting concept. However will it keep the unmotivated, whining, player on the field? Or will it demoralize them so much that they would just rather hang out by the campfire and tell stories?

The challenge of beating a team so bad that they play on "easy mode" is compelling and I could see it as a draw for hard hitting teams, but the loosing side would look else where to spend their money because that promoter let them get beat up on by the bullies on the other side.

The reason divisions work in tourney ball is because there is only one or two national circuits. If you want to be the best you have to play in those circuits. That and they have a true winner. After it is all said and done the winner of the pro division is the best that weekend. If a team thinks they are better, pay the money and step up to the plate. With scenario nobody has come up with a way to tell which team on a given weekend is the best. It can be debated, there are times when it is apparent, but nothing completely cut and dried. Different generals, different teams on each side, different promoters with different rules, there are too many variables for it to work. IMO there are also too few hard hitting teams that want to travel nationally where a circuit could be born and survive.

I don't think a scenario circuit would work simply because of the mechanics. It'd need one promoter to keep it consistent, travel it around, and have totally transparent mechanics. Hasn't happened yet. Maybe it could, we'll see. Teams would need big sponsors for travel, lodging, and paint. That's more of a limiting factor than anything else I can think of.

As for the whiny people, well, you can give a small, honest hand up, but not a hand out. Transparency is mandatory to keep the largest amount of social harmony.

An ideal game should have generals of roughly equal experience, XOs that know what an XO actually does and have good pitbulls, and sides of roughly equal numbers and experience. That makes for a close, exciting game every time. You can even have a newer general if they have a very experienced and proven general as an XO that understands the situation and won't just run off to play (everybody flies with an Instructor before they Solo).

Let me throw you a SNAFU though. I've seen this in person, so bear with me. What if the general looks you in the eye, nods his head, and says he understands everything you just told him that pertains to the game. Then, he goes onto the field, gets to his bunker... and goes blank. Missions are jammed up and not really going, his base is dropped twice, there's no solid comms with anybody, roleplayers aren't making meetings, none of the MOS loot has even been handed out, somehow they ran out of arm band tape, oh hey, look, here comes the other team's gunship leading the base hitting force and their laws, and why is the XO still fiddling with his marker off field?

I think a small game mechanic to patch against murphy wouldn't be a bad idea. Some things can not be easily fixed, only planned ahead for.

Now here's the fun part. Next month the Scenario Engine section of my site is opening up. It's free. You can make all the stuff for simple to very complex games in some standard, expanded, and unique formats. Print it all out and have a typical game run by radios... or step it up and host the game online. Hosting online lets all the powers function automatically, with no intervention, some pretty cool options for objectives, live scoring, all the stuff you need to run a complex game. If you give the generals some netbooks ($50 + contract - rebates) or laptops with cell cards, you get mission delivery, media content delivery, instant voice & video chat with command, and game features that's only ever been talked about like production, virtual economies, diplomacy. It handles multiple venues by default, so you could run a linked game at dozens of fields on every habitable continent at once as long as the field has a decent cell phone signal. Okay enough talking up my toy...

Back to the game balancing, the whole thing can be configured for different margins and different powers, it can be totally excluded from a game. Doesn't matter to me. I'm just presenting you with an option, and I know it won't appeal to everybody. A forced handicap is still a forced handicap no matter how much I butter it up. But if you turn it on, you can set it to wait until the score hits a point where the losing side can not win, no matter what they do... and open up their hospital for the rest of the game. You could set it to wait until they're down 20 to 1, at least 12 hours have elapsed, then give them a 5% window increase. It's pretty configurable, and has the potential for some interesting things I think. I don't even think it's a good option for every game. Some need to be purely hardcore mode. There's a niche for that. I do think it's worth testing though to deal with unplanned events.

Interesting concept Indy. I think it would work in many situations where the trounced-on side has some experienced hard core teams mixed in with less experienced/hard hitting teams/players. I have seen many players that, even though they know they are outclassed and outgunned,chomp at the bit to get back in and play some more. As you said everything would need to be transparant with each General/XO knowing what is being done and when.

Although I do believe that when one side has basically all the best teams and the other has, well the rest, that no acceptable amount of boosting can overcome that. There has to be at least some pale semblence of balance for this to work, or for players who actually want a challenge when they play.

One of the best ways for this to happen is for the Generals (BOTH of them) to actively recruit the best teams they can for their side, and have teams they have already recruited do additional recruiting among their contacts. In no way, shape or form should one general do a massive recruiting effort to get teams to play on his/her side while the other general just sits back and says "it will all be evened out before play starts". This will totally piss teams off that end up getting switched against their will. However, there are always some teams that do not choose sides when they register and say "just wait till the end and put us on the weaker side".