[D.J.]

Started playing when I was around 13/14 yo and over time, guns got faster. At one point we played uncapped semi with guns blazing at insane rates of fire. Fast forward a few years and everything went to ramping capped at 15bps. Then I quit for about 13 years. Come back and we are at 10. TEN ?????

I’m not saying 10 is super slow or nothing, but why the slow down?

And I guess that bring up the question why purchase a $1000+ gun when you can find something that shoots just as fast for $400 or less??

[Mr. Charlie]

Yup, I recall uncapped semi. That’s how I came back playing and people were like “WTF dude?!” Lol.

I believe the 10.5 BPS cap came from the NXL. It does seem a little bit low to me too, but it does kinda even the playing field some since everyone else is also Ramping at that speed.

[pink painter]

Makes it rough on us dudes with old guns, that don't have a way to cap lol.

[cyberpyr8]

The players mentalities have changed a lot too. When I started playing everyone had a fast gun but we went and played anyway even with our rental guns. We knew we were going to get lit up but it was the challenge of it. We got better and also bought faster guns to keep up and compete.

Fast forward 17 years and I have seen grown men (younger, taller and bigger than me) refuse to play with a group of us shooting semi. I hate to say it but the players coming in are afraid to play at fast rates of speed (of course I am generalizing, there's always exceptions). I'm not saying it's the younger players either. I have seen men in their 30's and 40's wimp out too. I think back in the 2000's we looked at it as a challenge or brave thing to go do. Today they would rather not get hurt.

The reality is, fields are trying to get players in and wanting them to come back. Playing at lower speeds help those players not feel overwhelmed. I think some fields have capped their rec play to 5.5bps but I can shoot faster than that with my Emek. I would be ok with faster speedball rate of fire 12-15 even and rec play set to 8 to 10. But like Charlie said, the NXL set the speed so everyone kind of adopted it too.

[Mr. Charlie]

Yeah. I prefer to play and shoot uncapped semi but there was just too much cheating going on at Tournaments so they changed the rules to capped Ramping.

Playing air-ball against people who are shooting at a faster BPS than you are definitely gives them the advantage. That’s probably why people don’t want to play against you when they are playing at a slower ROF.

[D.J.]

So is it just me who thinks it’s crazy to buy a $1000+ gun when you can get one that does virtually the same thing for half the cost(sometimes lower)? I mean back before “retirement “ I could see a notable difference in the high end DMs,Egos and such over the mid grade markers. For gods sake, Tippmann has a pretty bad*ss gun now for roughly $300. Although I will admit I’ve just seen videos of these guns. Last gun I purchased new was a PM6 many moons ago lol

[sotospeak]

ramping took out a big and fun skill in the game walking the trigger and off hand shooting both are easy with ramping there is no reason to even have a double trigger big shame.

UNCAPPED SEMI 300 FPS everything else is nerf

[dreadmuppet]

Originally Posted by D.J.

So is it just me who thinks it’s crazy to buy a $1000+ gun when you can get one that does virtually the same thing for half the cost(sometimes lower)? I mean back before “retirement “ I could see a notable difference in the high end DMs,Egos and such over the mid grade markers. For gods sake, Tippmann has a pretty bad*ss gun now for roughly $300. Although I will admit I’ve just seen videos of these guns. Last gun I purchased new was a PM6 many moons ago lol

Gets better. Planet Eclipse Emek $250 | Etha 2 $430 | GTEK $800 all have the exact same drive train. The CS2/Pro $1500 drive train is very similar as well.

There are absolutely diminishing returns but you are paying for tweakability, brittle paint handling, ergonomics (though more personal preference), aluminum vs plastic, bragging rights, etc.

If you want to take a deep dive into comparing current mid to high end gun I highly recommend taking at look at this thread: https://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?t=4575737

It has been going on six (wow) years now so you may want to jump forward a bit. There are a lot of highly knowledgeable people that have used every gun out there comparing their insights almost daily.

[Paul77]

we have been playing 10 semi capped here, mainly so local players can get better/more consistent at diddling their thingy. this is especially noticeable off hand play. just trying to make better players overall.

[boarder2k7]

Originally Posted by pink painter

Makes it rough on us dudes with old guns, that don't have a way to cap lol.

This is an issue. I think my Worrframe only goes down to 11 or 12 and my Angel Speed bottoms out at 11.

10.2 was an annoying place for them to set it to. Lemme put on my tinfoil hat and say they set it under the lower bound for a lot of older equipment to make people have to buy new gear instead of just having the cheap old stuff back in the ring again.

[D.J.]

I always preferred unlimited semi. I was ok with 15 capped ramping. I guess I’ll have to be ok with turtle mode

But for the record. My daughter WILL learn how to play while playing unlimited semi. I believe one day it will make a comeback.

[jtguy2269]

Originally Posted by D.J.

I always preferred unlimited semi. I was ok with 15 capped ramping. I guess I’ll have to be ok with turtle mode

But for the record. My daughter WILL learn how to play while playing unlimited semi. I believe one day it will make a comeback.

not only will semi make a comeback, but learning how to play in semi will help her develop better trigger control and aim.

[D.J.]

Originally Posted by jtguy2269

not only will semi make a comeback, but learning how to play in semi will help her develop better trigger control and aim.

Gawd I hope it makes a comeback! Always preferred it over ramping.

[jakemacfilm]

Love this thread, was wondering the same thing.

Just recently got back into speedball after 15 years. Played all day on NXL mode the other weekend then switched to semi for a last match and couldn’t believe how much faster I was shooting, definitely double the amount of paint.

Weird field rules though, for rec ball the ref wouldn’t allow ramping, only uncapped semi, then the airball field has no refs and everyone is mostly ramping—there was one guy who was showing off his uncapped “automatic” bouncing trigger and nobody seemed to care. This is what people used to get mad at if I remember correctly.

Grew up playing on super fast semi and I always saw trigger walking as a gunfighting skill, the playing field wasn’t level for that just like with all other skills required for paintball. Back players usually could shoot way faster than front players but the front guys were physically faster. Made sense to me. Wish it would make a come back for streetball.

One noticeable upside to 10bps though, saves me money on paint.