Millennium Series : Prizes for Novice teams please

[markh]

Millennium Series : Prizes for Novice teams please

In the Millennium series, winning Pros and Ams. receive prizes. Why not novices ? Pros and many Am. teams are generally assisted/sponsored to some degree, while many novices teams receive little or no aid , thus making a prize of any sort very welcome and useful to the novice team.

I’m not suggesting thousands of euros, but say the winning team receives say a complete new team uniform from a manufacture, or perhaps a single new marker for the team. Value of prizes would of course reduce until 4th place could get say 7 sets of goggles. Just a little encouragement and something to offset the cost of playing these events. I’m sure the Pro teams won’t mind reducing their prize money ever so slightly to help out the grass roots teams.

 

[manike]

Is it better to provide prizes for novice teams or make it cheaper for them to play? If you want prizes then pay the same entry as Amateur or Pro teams.

If you took the savings you get on entry you could probably buy a set of kit...

I think it is better in Novice to play for the honour of winning as cheaply as possible. Those that could win prizes ought to get their arses into amateur where they deserve them a little more etc... (up to the Ams who complain about what they win, they should bloody well play pro )

The whole point of Novice is to get teams into playing competitive paintball. Not to make it so lucrative for them thay they decide to sand bag and stay in that division.

If you win novice you don't win an event (same goes for Amateur) you came 1 + (number of amateurs + number of pro's). So if for instance you won the novice division then you came 70th in an event, does that really mean you deserve to win prizes?

Winning Novice is about honour and learning. Winning Pro is about getting prizes, in my opinion. (Amateur is halfway between).

manike

 

[Beaker]

Bloody hell Si - I agree with you steady on!

Novice deserve more recognition from the industry if you are prepared to go at it over a season (props to Shock3 for that) but it all depends on whether you are prepared to go and promote yourself or take the rather arrogant attitude that they should come and find you.

Prizes or entry, can't have both

 

[markh]

Manike, in another post, I suggest promotion/relegation of teams, this would stop sand baggers.

I believe players treat the Nov/Am/Pro divisions as 3 separate tournaments. Novs try to win nov, that is the tournament for them. I'll also bet that some winning Nov teams would beat the lowest placed Am teams and winning ams could give the lowest pro a run for their money. Eg Campaign power were nov, went to Am and they are doing ok, not at the bottom of the Am table I don’t think. The difference between the bottom of one division and the top of the lower division is not that great.

The prizes for novice are in my mind, more token gestures of encouragement. For my team a Millennium Series event at novice is already a big investment, especially if you play a number of them, coupled with taking holiday from work.


Even free entry for winning novice team would be a nice reward for all the years playing/training, as well as the honour of winning the division.

FYI

From the Millennium site, we find

Pro: 1 250 €
Am: 1000 €
Nov: 700 €

 

[Beaker]

I agree on the Divisions, there are definite "grey areas" between top and bottom.

But that's one reason to not give prizes in Novice. That's where the "real" Novice teams have to start out and if the top spots are often taken up with the same 4 or 5 teams who don't move up to AM then they will not return.

At least if the top Novice teams have to move up to Am to win prizes it leave the way open to new teams coming in as it has no incentive.

 

[Buddha 3]

I think the whole concept is a bit daft anyway.
First off, it's good that the entry fee has been lowered for the novice teams, in order to give as many teams as possible the opportunity to play in big events.
But this is silly: 'Here, you Vforce sponsored team, have a stack of JT goggles!'

 

[Al Woods]

Good topic

I suppose the prize thing seperates the teams that really want to be up there with the best from those that are happy to just plod along for years and win a bit here and there. I think good prizes for Novices would be free entry to the next event in the series, whatever the series may be, or the odd piece of kit but nothing too hefty.

If you are hungry enough and brave nough to progress up through the ranks then you are rewarded, if you can whupp AM/Pro teams and place highly then you will get the recognition and the gold that you deserve.

Also, if prizes were decent enough in Novice then why would top Novice teams progress?? They'd be happy to paste the **** outta every other team year in and year out and walk away with the gold. In fact there should be some sort of ruling stating that teams that regularly play the Novice divisions, particularly in Millennium, that are clearly serious about competing but enjoy destroying the Novices time after time should be automatically promoted to Am.

 

[Buddha 3]

Consequently, shouldn't the same count for the top Am teams then?
(although some of them are likely to be 'politely' nudged into the Pro leagues by their sponsors)

 

[Beaker]

I can see why teams wouldn't go Pro, but not why teams wouldn't go Am. It was always Thunder's intention to do one full season of Mills as Novice then step to Am. i presume they are still gonna, especially now I am not holding them back

But seriously, prizes for Novices just promote sandbagging. Amms should be the biggest "group" as there are a lot more teams that have been round a while that those starting out.

 

[manike]

Originally posted by markh
Even free entry for winning novice team would be a nice reward for all the years playing/training, as well as the honour of winning the division.

If you've been doing that playing and training with the same team then in my opinion you shouldn't be in Novice anyway!

I have no problem with people that have been playing for a long time playing in novice as part of a new team etc. But a team of guys that have been training and playing together and playing events together should not in my opinion be competing in novice anyway. They may still be crap but they should be in Amateur. That's where that greay area comes into play maybe?

Likewise if a group of players that have played Pro get together as a new team they shouldn't really be in novice. They should be in Amateur. They may be crap now but they are no longer novice in my opinion. Obviously situations with one or two players (who used to be competitive in a division above or so) in a team can be understood if they are building a new team. But groups of old pro's forming and entering as novice then making the semi's and finals should be stopped. It makes a joke of the real novices who are there fairly.

Novice is for new players and new teams. It's a start up and honour thing. I don't believe there should be any prizes for novice other than trophies but it should be kept as cheap as possible for them to play and get started as a team.

manike