[inkrypt]

so today i was watching a 3on3 match at a field. from looking at what the teams were using equipment wise, it seemed like one of the teams was going to mow the other team down. to make a not-so-long (not sure if the usage of "-" is grammatically correct in this case. oh well. it's the internet.) story shorter, that team lost.

then me and my friend joined to make it a 4on4 match and i went to the team that previously lost. the conversation went like this

guy1: what team are you on?
me: ... yours?... (which is why i walked across the field to you guys...)
guy2: what gun is that? what gun do you have?
me: an Ion...
guy2 or 3: [profanity] what mode is it set on?
me: semi.. (at this point i'm wondering what mode their shocker/ego/dm are set to.. and beginning to be worried. in retrospect i can't believe it didn't occur to me to tell them to set their guns to semi. idiot move on my part D= )
guy2 to guy3: okay we'll rush up and you stand back and shoot, because you have the fastest gun
me: yeah... ... i'll.. hit that bunker over there...

we lost. but i took two out of four down with me atleast. teammates took down zero. did i mention the other team shot tippmans?

moral of the story: good gear does not mean you become a good player! (please re-read for emphasis)

these guys were fully decked out. high end markers, jerseys, pants, nice masks, everything. how did they play? not that great.
i call these people shells. amazing gear on the outside, no skill on the inside. (creative aren't i? [cough cough])


guys, you don't need all the expensive high end gear to become a good paintball player, you need skill. if you spend hundreds of dollars on the best gear you can buy and then go out to the field only to play bad, well... it's pretty embarassing.

so save yourself the embarasment and buy gear with your skill level in mind. if you just started, do you really need that geo? no you don't. save yourself some money and get something cheaper that'll get the job done. when other players see shells they assume they are just spoiled kids who ran to the store and pointed their finger at the most expensive and shiny stuff. if you're an older shell. well then people assume you are loaded, or atleast i do. that's not an impression you want to give people.

paintball players are on a continuum that looks something like this:

equipment > player |||||||||||||| player = equipment |||||||||||||||| player > equipment
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

if you're on the far left, spend less time (and money) trying to look cool and more time trying to improve
(for you people that think pokemon is still in: it's like using the rare candy cheat to have a lvl100 pokemon but not having enough badges to get it to listen to you. if you flame me [in pm's of course, not publicly] for writing this example. i deserve it. flame away. i am a horrible person. T.T)

if you're kinda on the left, you're good but you still have room to grow with your marker, so it's not a bad place to be at all. (i fall in this category =p, as do 90%, if not more, of you.)

if you're in the middle, good for you. people that fall here are, most likely, of the tournament breed.

if you're in the right, you're fine where you are. but better equipment might work wonders for you. (by this i mean, for example... upgrading from a piranha marker to a slg or g3 etc. after you hit a certain price range of guns, you're pretty much somewhere between the middle and the left) people in this category probably own a low-end marker. ever wondered how godly those few awesome pump players might be with a high end marker? yeah, this is probably where they would fall under.

please be realistic about your skill. and for your sake, purchase gear accordingly.
good gear does not mean you become a good player! (read three times while dancing like a soggy paper towel and post on youtube.)

that is all i have to say on this subject, so bye! now i must pack my stuff because i'm returning to college tommorow. joy.

This post has been edited by inkrypt: 03 January 2009 - 12:37 AM

[Ando]

awesome.
Shells needs to be trademarked. We ought to make that a commonly known word here.

[ChrisB]

Fully decked out people don't really bother me even if its their first or second time out.

What ticks me off is when anyone talk shit about your stuff or other peoples stuff.

This post has been edited by ChrisB: 03 January 2009 - 12:44 AM

[inkrypt]

Ando, on Jan 2 2009, 09:40 PM, said:

awesome.
Shells needs to be trademarked. We ought to make that a commonly known word here.

we definitely should! but i'd have to demand royalty fees whenever anyone uses it. =O
just kidding, kinda. >.>

ChrisB, on Jan 2 2009, 09:42 PM, said:

Fully decked out people don't really bother me even if its their first or second time out.

What ticks me off is when anyone talk shit about your stuff or other peoples stuff.

same here, but i rarely encounter those kinds of people, so it's not so big of a problem for me =p

[SOUP]

This is the greatest article I have seen in a long time... Great job! I know exactly what you are talking about, I currently am running with a cci phantom all stock class and kids always come along with egos, dms, and highend gear. They talk big but hardly ever do you see them play as good as they talk... While on the other han I am pumping better than they are walking 13 bps . Its sad but thats life, those kids will always exist...

sticky this shit!

[jacob949494]

i think new people should start with a cheap gun like a spyder then when they get beter upgrade to better gear and stuff lol but if my family was rich i would buy that stuff lol but i cant im poor

[Badness]

inkrypt, on Jan 2 2009, 07:34 PM, said:

so today i was watching a 3on3 match at a field. from looking at what the teams were using equipment wise, it seemed like one of the teams was going to mow the other team down. to make a not-so-long (not sure if the usage of "-" is grammatically correct in this case. oh well. it's the internet.) story shorter, that team lost.

then me and my friend joined to make it a 4on4 match and i went to the team that previously lost. the conversation went like this

guy1: what team are you on?
me: ... yours?... (which is why i walked across the field to you guys...)
guy2: what gun is that? what gun do you have?
me: an Ion...
guy2 or 3: [profanity] what mode is it set on?
me: semi.. (at this point i'm wondering what mode their shocker/ego/dm are set to.. and beginning to be worried. in retrospect i can't believe it didn't occur to me to tell them to set their guns to semi. idiot move on my part D= )
guy2 to guy3: okay we'll rush up and you stand back and shoot, because you have the fastest gun
me: yeah... ... i'll.. hit that bunker over there...

we lost. but i took two out of four down with me atleast. teammates took down zero. did i mention the other team shot tippmans?

moral of the story: good gear does not mean you become a good player! (please re-read for emphasis)

these guys were fully decked out. high end markers, jerseys, pants, nice masks, everything. how did they play? not that great.
i call these people shells. amazing gear on the outside, no skill on the inside. (creative aren't i? [cough cough])


guys, you don't need all the expensive high end gear to become a good paintball player, you need skill. if you spend hundreds of dollars on the best gear you can buy and then go out to the field only to play bad, well... it's pretty embarassing.

so save yourself the embarasment and buy gear with your skill level in mind. if you just started, do you really need that geo? no you don't. save yourself some money and get something cheaper that'll get the job done. when other players see shells they assume they are just spoiled kids who ran to the store and pointed their finger at the most expensive and shiny stuff. if you're an older shell. well then people assume you are loaded, or atleast i do. that's not an impression you want to give people.

paintball players are on a continuum that looks something like this:

equipment > player |||||||||||||| player = equipment |||||||||||||||| player > equipment
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

if you're on the far left, spend less time (and money) trying to look cool and more time trying to improve
(for you people that think pokemon is still in: it's like using the rare candy cheat to have a lvl100 pokemon but not having enough badges to get it to listen to you. if you flame me [in pm's of course, not publicly] for writing this example. i deserve it. flame away. i am a horrible person. T.T)

if you're kinda on the left, you're good but you still have room to grow with your marker, so it's not a bad place to be at all. (i fall in this category =p, as do 90%, if not more, of you.)

if you're in the middle, good for you. people that fall here are, most likely, of the tournament breed.

if you're in the right, you're fine where you are. but better equipment might work wonders for you. (by this i mean, for example... upgrading from a piranha marker to a slg or g3 etc. after you hit a certain price range of guns, you're pretty much somewhere between the middle and the left) people in this category probably own a low-end marker. ever wondered how godly those few awesome pump players might be with a high end marker? yeah, this is probably where they would fall under.

please be realistic about your skill. and for your sake, purchase gear accordingly.
good gear does not mean you become a good player! (read three times while dancing like a soggy paper towel and post on youtube.)

that is all i have to say on this subject, so bye! now i must pack my stuff because i'm returning to college tommorow. joy.

I dunno, most of this post seems irrelavent. This post is not about bad players who talk shit as if they're good. It's about bad players who have nice gear. If a player is bad but has good gear, who cares. Those who can buy good gear will buy them and those who can't won't. Why do i say this? Because those who know what good gear IS, even though they're horrible at playing the game, probably already know that buying the best gear won't make them an all star player. They bought it cause they wanted the best. This thread shouldn't be stickied. It should be closed. It's basically saying don't buy expensive gear because you suck. Doesn't make any sense to me.

This thread reminds me of that one thread on PBN where a kid from the Big Island of Hawaii posted all of his paintball gear and his house. There was liek what...? 50+ pages of people just completely bashing and flaming that kid. Saying how he's rich and how he sucks at paintball. Every single one of the people that complained about being rich and being crappy at paintball were JEALOUS....because they couldn't have all the things that he had. Every single one of you on this forum who shares the same feelings as the OP know that if some guy offered you an 09 Ego or whatever high end gun for free, you'd take it in a heart beat, regardless of your skill in paintball.

And for those of you who disagree, here's an analogy for you. It's kinda like some dude working for mcdonalds refusing a million dollar lottery winning cause he didn't "earn" the money. Or a billionaire living in a studio apartment. Just doesn't make sense. (no, a studio apartment isn't where you record music. Look it up).

[inkrypt]

the target audience for this was people who really do think that buying high-end stuff makes them good players, and for new players who might slip into that mentality.

the point i was trying to make was that you don't need good gear to be a good player. not that someone sucks, or that someone is rich, etc.

i'm saying, if you're a newer player, you don't have to dive into all the high-end stuff. if someone posted here and asked you what a good marker was for a first time player, you wouldn't really respond by saying "if he/she has the money, get the ego."

if someone with a dm8 played like a first timer and then he told you that he was going to go buy a dm9 soon and what the dm9 can do, you wouldn't say anything along the lines of sticking to his dm8?
from your perspective (i think)... if he has the money to do it, then it's fine. and i guess there's nothing really wrong with it, it's just a matter of opinion on how money should be spent.

oh, and the analogy wouldn't work in the point i'm trying to make because... hell, if someone handed me an ego, i'd take it, who wouldn't. i didn't go into that because i thought readers would assume that the people are buying it, not receiving it as gifts. sorry if that was unclear.

[CanadianBigGame]

We use the term AKNA, stands for (all kit no action). Used in a sentence "look at akna over there thinking he is all hot, I wish he could see how dumb he looks"

[james182paintball]

shell sounds better than akna no offense

[RickT]

i agree if your starting paintball you shouldnt spend more then 500-600 dollars
but i live in canada so 700 max our stuff more expensive ><
this is my set up and i've been looking into equipment since june when i started
Marker: SLG UL
Hopper: Dye Rotor
Tank: PMI 68/45
Mask: E-Vent
Apparel: empire gloves, invert jersey

[inkrypt]

the e-vent is an awesome mask, i have one myself and i love it

i didn't know it was that much more expensive in canada >.<" it must suck =[

[CdnNinja]

When starting out I think people should buy whatever they want, just don't act like the gear you bought makes you good. Although there does seem to be a little bit of an awkward phase with a marker that new players need to get over before getting a higher end marker. You often give them a marker and they lack even a basic understanding of how it works, which is not their fault, most of us were like this when we started. But this does lead to accidental firing of the marker, not being able to solve basic problems etc...

Now when I ref I sometimes see experienced players bringing out their friend for the first time, which is good. But sometimes they give them high end electros, which can be kind of problematic. Now if they can't handle not accidentally shooting a Tippmann with a heavy trigger pull, then what are they going to do with a high end with a super light trigger pull? This is were I feel starting out with a lower end, simple marker can be beneficial. They can learn the basics while minimizing accidental shootings and other things like overshooting. Then, once the basics are learned, they can move on to a higher end with less of a problem.

However most people rent or borrow before buying their own set up, so that awkward stage has a chance to pass before they buy their own equipment.

[baldwino111]

I think you should rent a couple times before buying gear unlike I did..... I learned the hard way but I think shooting as fast as the others really does help because it evens the field a little. I started off with a setup thats was 200... a 98, a proto mask and co2 and that's in canadian so that's like 160 in USA

[p_aint_ball]

dood, new players can get all the gear and the guns, they just dhouldnt think they are good because of it. i mean why waste money and start out with a bad gun like a spyder or something? if u just buy one good gun, then you dont have to buy another one for a good 4/5 years and u dont waste time looking for markers... no player or not, u can get the good gear if you want just dont think ur cu of it... I, with my khaki pants and a long sleave shirt, took out 4 guys in one game today and 3/4 of them had the pod packs, jerseys, pants, and g3s, etc. i even bunkered the guy with the g3 lol, he couldnt shoot for crap

EDIT: and yeah gear does matter to a certain point... its considerably harder to win with a rental than it is with my pmr... i tried it today and all could do was bunker people because it couldnt shoot more than 2 bunkers down from me... but i mean onceu get up there in the mid level guns like the pmr, g3, mini, etc.c it doesnt really matter much

This post has been edited by p_aint_ball: 03 January 2009 - 07:00 PM

[stavey22]

did you really just relate paintball to pokemon

[minifanboy2010]

stavey22, on Jan 3 2009, 05:15 PM, said:

did you really just relate paintball to pokemon

lmfao win.

and i agree with the irrelevency of the post. This should just be about how to not be intimidated by people with gear until you measure their skill in combat, no dissing newbies with good gear because they can afford it and discouraging people from getting good gear.

[WhatsHisFace]

I agree with the getting gear according to your skill, to some extent. The way I see it is, why spend all of your money on gear when you can use it to actually play the game? Like others have said, if you have the money, why not? Just don't take 2 or 3 months off paintballing because your saving up for that ego when you've only been to the field a handful of times.

I'm 14. I've been playing for nearly a year now, and purchased a used ion on ebay to start off. I'm hoping to eventually upgrade to a Protege. But, without a job, and paint being 140 bucks a case at my field, theres no way right now. I'd rather have a blast playing with my current gun (which works FINE), then spend months and months saving up money to upgrade my equipment, then have people running circles around me.

Thats just my 2 cents.

[inkrypt]

i read the replies and... i haven't really read anything i disagree with. i think i just sucked at explaining what i wanted to say well =.=

but one thing i wanted to make clear was, this isn't about putting anyone down. i think my bit on playing the 4on4 might have given that impression, but i wanted that part to show how they cared more about what i had than what i could do..

i wrote this post with the average income making family in mind, not the wealthy or those that got free gear, and to tell people that they don't need to buy the expensive stuff or feel bad about their lower end stuff. in the end, it all just comes down to how they perform on the field.

i think WhatsHisFace worded his response better than my.. however long my original post was

[quadzilla122]

inkrypt, on Jan 3 2009, 12:34 AM, said:

if you're on the far left, spend less time (and money) trying to look cool and more time trying to improve
(for you people that think pokemon is still in: it's like using the rare candy cheat to have a lvl100 pokemon but not having enough badges to get it to listen to you. if you flame me [in pm's of course, not publicly] for writing this example. i deserve it. flame away. i am a horrible person. T.T)

ROFL! Dont forget its only in red and blue version!
(I know this is an epic fail but... lol)
Fly to viridian cit talk to the guy who teaches you how to catch a pokemon and tell em you dont know how to catch one.Once your done talking fly to cinnabar island and swim across the eastcoast shoreline until you come across metronome or something that is definately not a pokemon. Switch any item you want into the 6th spot of your items list(in this case rare candy) and escape the battle alive. Your should have around 80 of your 6th item.
I know this is the most epic fail post on techpb.