Favouritism

[Cr0-Magnon]

One of my guilty pleasures is reading the lowest Google reviews for various venues and shops (hey, it beats the Daily Mail!), including airsoft.

One of the reoccurring complaints for skirmish sites, is that the regular players received preferential treatment. Ranging from all being put on the same team, so they can use rentals and other new players as target practice, to accusations that they weren't even chronoed and were subsequently probably using hot guns.

Has anyone here actually experienced that, or is it just a case of new players being disappointed (possibly due to Youtube videos etc)?

 

[Tackle]

Most definitely, even worse are the "MATES" of the staff, literally act as if no rules apply to them, something I've witnessed for myself at many sites. 

 

[Lozart]

Something I always remember from the days of The Mall was that Luke et al would be more harsh with the regulars and "friends" because showing favourites is a dick move.

 

[Cr0-Magnon]

Most definitely, even worse are the "MATES" of the staff, literally act as if no rules apply to them, something I've witnessed for myself at many sites. 

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I don't get it, how can you even feel like you're "winning" at something if you're not playing by the same rules as everyone else.

Something I always remember from the days of The Mall was that Luke et al would be more harsh with the regulars and "friends" because showing favourites is a dick move.

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Regulars should be held to a higher standard if anything, because they can't use ignorance as an excuse.

 

[Speedbird_666]

Was at UCAP Valiant yesterday - and some of the staff playing the day along with some of the regulars and friends. The day's reffing staff made the effort to ensure that there was roughly equal numbers of players with experience of the site on each team. The day went smoothly and the playing staff received their fair share of eliminations from the game throughout. Probably the best day of airsoft I've had in years TBH.

So while yes, favouritism does happen, it shouldn't on a decent, well managed site.

 

[Tactical Pith Helmet]

Can happen in anything.   Not an airsoft issue exclusively. 

Decent sites tend to hold regulars to a higher standard too though, and to keep an eye on new players.   

 

[Emergencychimps]

Yes, I have seen it though I don't think it's as prevalent or as intentional as a lot of people believe, say or think.

Seen it at some skirmish sites, it's super funny when the group of "rentals" absolutely run rings around the regulars! Many times I have seen the teams get split and predicted it to go one way or the other and have been shocked by how the day has actually panned out. Unfortunately there have been times when it looks like the rentals/newer players are going to get smashed and they have been, generally though the sites I attend have split the teams pretty fairly from the off and made changes if one side is getting battered. 

I used to do a lot of stirling events and have heard it said that the stirling team get the preferential treatment, they get the "gucci" taskings etc. I used to believe that as well. However what I saw repeatedly was the stirling team doing the basics well and almost always had boring taskings. Then when they are on their 5th perimeter security tasking of the event and there is an intense counter attack which turns into an awesome firefight it looks like they had the "good tasking" rather than the team that was tasked with door kicking. Most teams/squads moaned about getting the "boring" taskings and would often flake (especially if it was their 2nd/3rd one of the event), when they got hit with a decent counter attack they'd often get rolled up cause the players got bored, didn't pay attention, chatted/had banter etc. 

 

[colinjallen]

I have seen it happen from time to time and have heard complaints of it happening far more often than it has happened.  Some players just seem to be unable to accept that they are not elite Squeal Team Six operators who should win every time.

 

[Rogerborg]

how can you even feel like you're "winning" at something if you're not playing by the same rules as everyone else

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Some folk are there to socialise, and the game is a distant concern.  Not a problem, as long as those people get balanced out, and don't take the piss.  If they're all on one team, that can be an issue.

It's very much site dependent.  One local - defunct - site was dreadful for it, with marshals' mates being told how to cheat chrono (making it a complete waste of time to even do it).

The old Depot site, on the other hand, was much better, and caught and turfed out a few marshals for running hot guns, and regulars for being loons.  I even saw the site owner being chronoed in-game, which is exactly what should happen.

 

[Cr0-Magnon]

Some folk are there to socialise, and the game is a distant concern. 

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True, that also applies to non-regular such as stag do parties. However they would likely be using rentals, which is eliminates to concern of overpowered guns.

On occasion I've been tempted to give Marshalling a go but then I remember you'd have to actually offer some level of customer service to airsofters.

 

[Tommikka]

Reviews can be biased, and it could be a sore loser who blames favouritism or it could be factually correct.

Ideally rentals and regulars or rentals & own gunners could be split.

Back in my beginning days of paintball it was fairly common for walk-on own gunners to turn up and play among rentals and to talk of ‘punter hunting’

Then sites would shift over to running a walkon day, or splitting the walkons and rentals to play different areas of the site.

You would still get a mix, and when we played at our local rental site we would not play the first game, allowing staff the chance to orient the rentals and the rental players to get a feel.  We would then join in from game two and split ourselves in half across the groups.

(and then we would tend to hunt each other down)

If players are sensible then that can be a reasonable approach.

But there can also be the impression that a poor rental is up against ‘professionals’.  I often saw players that I would think are seasoned regulars, but they would turn out to be the geardo who had just maxed out their credit card for their first games

Airsoft skirmish sites seem to be often run at a level somewhere between paintball regulars and rentals, therefore unless it’s a large rental group it’s run as a skirmish between rental and regulars.

It’s not always the case that a rental is a first time player.  When a site we had been regulars at closed down and was taken over by new management we arrived ‘undercover’ for their open day as family groups with strict instructions to the kids to not reveal our dirty secret ….. that was for about the first hour or so when we had a chance to suss out the new management and we then got a chance to chat & build a new relationship 

 

[Cannonfodder]

I tend to take Google reviews with a pinch of salt as I've  been to sites with great reviews which have turned out to be shit and vice versa

 

[Tackle]

When it comes to site reviews, I tend to treat them like a potential rif purchase, so look at the reviewers other content & try to gauge the "calibre" of the person behind it before considering its content. 

As for the breakdown of "sides" , my old (& fairly large) team was known for fair & balanced play, so the owners of our old group of home sites would often split us between sides, with the proviso that we would player/marshal, encourage positive & productive play, plus I'm sure we all like to play against your mates occasionally just for the craic & bantz ?

 

[Tommikka]

I tend to take Google reviews with a pinch of salt as I've  been to sites with great reviews which have turned out to be shit and vice versa

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When it comes to site reviews, I tend to treat them like a potential rif purchase, so look at the reviewers other content & try to gauge the "calibre" of the person behind it before considering its content. 

As for the breakdown of "sides" , my old (& fairly large) team was known for fair & balanced play, so the owners of our old group of home sites would often split us between sides, with the proviso that we would player/marshal, encourage positive & productive play, plus I'm sure we all like to play against your mates occasionally just for the craic & bantz ?

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Definately a point there about reviews …. They are not everyone’s feedback but are likely to be subsets of certain cohorts:

I had a bad time, or I was shouted at and am upset

I had the most awesome time of my life and cannot keep it to myself 

I was told to do a review by my boss

Most people don’t review everything they do.  You get a bias, and particularly that if you’re happy then you’re happy but if you’re angry then you tell the world that you’re angry.

 

[Tommikka]

I used to review Amazon items a lot via a ‘reviews’ site.

Sellers would advertise a ‘deal’ in exchange for reviews.

Many were overpriced items ‘reduced’ to the standard price, so people thought they were getting a deal

In general buyers only review when the item/experience was bad or a percentage of those prompted by Amazon after delivery 

Good sellers wanted believable feedback that had opinions, photos etc and the system rated reviewers.  If you gave 5 star reviews all of the time then you were no good to them, but if your review history was fair and objective then you would get good offers from genuine retailers who wanted to get word out on their products

Under Amazon’s rules you were required declare that you had an offer price or free item etc

The rules were revised and the sellers are not permitted to use any ratings of reviewers which means it has basically become ‘dodgy discounts’

The rule change stops retailers from being allowed to pick for good reviewers, and has perhaps dropped down to just people with an extreme like/dislike 

 

[Enid_Puceflange]

We have a lot of regulars on our site, first name terms, hanging around to help pack up at the end of day, good banter etc.

All of whom get a regular sneaky test-shot to keep them in check , we show no favouritism when we are out in the playing fields. It would kill the growth of the site. Players who were regulars, who didn’t like it, soon fekked off!

”invited to play elsewhere” I believe is the appropriate term

we had just over 90 players on sunday

Two who ignored their second test-shot (after a warning of ignoring the first) of the day were awarded a 4 week ban. If they do come back and cheat again it’s a permanent ban for them.

(these were new to us rental players)

This obviously got around that we take no prisoners when it comes to cheating, not a bad whisper to get around the rest of the players on site. 
 

Ruins it for everyone else.

And we also split up equally the rental players , new walk-ons , and experienced players to give a nice spread of ability.

Most of our regulars have no quibble when it comes to swapping sides to even things up if they can see it’s going to balance things out ability wise, but it also gives them a bit of a challenge to help turn the tide of a constantly losing side.

Fresh Marshals who play but aren’t in a “Team” have also helped out a lot.

And we have steadily seen our numbers increase from a regular 30 ish last year to now 80+ every fortnight

Steadily bringing in players from further afield