AI500 2022

[wicksy101]

Hey all,

 

Anybody coming to AI500 this year? Ill be on the green team for anybody that wants to find others to play with.

 

Apparently they have reduced the team sizes this year so it should be slightly better gameplay. Sunday last year was really good so I'm hoping it carry's on from there. Also as its the second time on the site I'm hoping they have sorted out a few of the issues. 

 

 

[Impulse]

Nah, they put it on a Worthing game day so none of the Worthing staff (or those of us who are good friends with the staff) will be along this time. It's a shame, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. This does, however, mean that people won't be finding Beans cards tucked into their gear (or around the hotel) this time

[Groot]

After the car crash of a 2021 game. People are really stupid enough to go again?

Honestly, how low is the expectation of airsoft players these days?

 

[Cannonfodder]

No. I refuse to go to any event run by that bunch of clowns 

[MAX DICKER]

Never been due to the overwhelming amount of bad experiences I've heard about it.

[ak2m4]

It's only 10 minutes from where I live and every local person who went who I've spoken to had nothing but bad things to say.  Isn't 2022 the last time they are getting to use the venue?

[Just Joe]

Out of curiosity; what other events are similar to this that aren’t run poorly?

[EDcase]

Pity, I like some of the rules such as single shot only and no snipers...

[Hrimfaxi]

Having never previously bothered about the AI500, I thought I might try it this time round... 

Anyone care to share their previous experiences and why they thought it was so bad?  

[wicksy101]

13 hours ago, Hrimfaxi said:

Having never previously bothered about the AI500, I thought I might try it this time round... 

Anyone care to share their previous experiences and why they thought it was so bad?  

Last year was my first event.

 

I don't have much to compare it to other than normal skirmishes. Saturday was not great, mostly due to weather and the amount of people. People were stacking up in a few places meaning it was hard to make progress. Other people have written up much better reviews.

 

Sunday after a fair few people had gone home was 100x better due to less players. It was their first time at this site and they had no idea how it would play with so many people.

 

I'm hoping this year should have everything ironed out and be much better. My mate who got me into airsoft said they always have good and bad years. Given Sunday last year and the time they have had to sort out the issues, it should be good!

[Hrimfaxi]

On 04/03/2022 at 12:50, wicksy101 said:

Last year was my first event.

 

I don't have much to compare it to other than normal skirmishes. Saturday was not great, mostly due to weather and the amount of people. People were stacking up in a few places meaning it was hard to make progress. Other people have written up much better reviews.

 

Sunday after a fair few people had gone home was 100x better due to less players. It was their first time at this site and they had no idea how it would play with so many people.

 

I'm hoping this year should have everything ironed out and be much better. My mate who got me into airsoft said they always have good and bad years. Given Sunday last year and the time they have had to sort out the issues, it should be good!

Yeah, I think having AI previously using the same venue - I'd like to think they would iron out or attempt to address some of the bad points.  Might be worth it...

[wicksy101]

On 05/03/2022 at 16:36, Hrimfaxi said:

Yeah, I think having AI previously using the same venue - I'd like to think they would iron out or attempt to address some of the bad points.  Might be worth it...

Hm… write up coming soon…

[Tackle]

That doesn't sound very positive ?............. 

 

Why am I not surprised 😏

32 minutes ago, wicksy101 said:

Hm… write up coming soon…

 

[wicksy101]

So.... AI500 2022...

 

 

After last years questionable weekend i really thought that some things would have been sorted out... Some of them were, others not so much... Let me start off by saying that there was some really good gameplay from both teams. I was on the green team and despite being outnumbered, most of the team were pushing any trying their best to make the most of a shit situation...

 

Now... onto the nitty gritty. If you have seen any of the posts regarding last year, there were a few main points that came out of them. They mostly mentioned lack of marshalling, complete lack of chrono, poor organisation and communication and less than ideal bottlenecks. Some of these were addressed to an extent but i don't think any of these issues were truly sorted.

 

GENERAL BITS

The weekend was off to a questionable start when we realised how many people the other team had compared to us. I think they had over 50 more players after no-shows ect. I really don't know how they can let this happen with an online booking system. Surely they can ask people to move over before the event has started. We were held in our spawn quite a lot over the first day. When asking a marshal on day 2 if they would make anybody move over his response was 'we have'. I kid you not, they got about 5 people over and called it a day 🤣

 

We didn't see the second half of the field at all until the second day at 12pm when they finally decided we were getting fucked so hard they would let us start pretty much at their spawn. Well this was great to see that half of the site but it was too little too late unfortunately and we were back in our spawn within about 40 minutes. I have no idea how they could just watch us sit in the spawn for so long and not think about changing things up sooner. We were pissed off as we could make no progress and im sure the tans were fairly bored sitting around doing not much (Im sure some of them enjoyed the £90 interactive shooting range though)

 

They made a good attempt this year to avoid the bottlenecks of last year and put up some temp barriers and also covered the sports-field in tarp. This made movement much better than last year.

 

It's worth me mentioning that there was a hole in the floor in one of the buildings. Tape had been put up on either side but nothing was mentioned in the brief including the fact that you cannot shoot down the hallway through the tape (nothing was there to indicate hard cover)

 

 

CHRONO

Let's start off by taking a look at the chrono (if you can call it that). I can only assume after some moaning last year about not having one, they thought they should really be doing a chrono this year. Welp, doing a voluntary chrono is certainly not the play they should have made here, they may as-well have not had one. Saying that, at least there were no 8mm BBs flying around like there was last year. Neither did i have blood drawn this year.

 

THE PYRO SAGA

Right, this one really got me. This carries on from last year but it triggered me again this year. The rules state the below.

 

'Pyro limited to MK4 anywhere on site. This includes reusable pyro (at the last game TLFX made us some MK5 pyro but with a special bang so they were not as noisy as normal MK5 levels). These will be permitted if anyone has any left or will be sold on site via Ammo Drop. If not bought directly from site though please stick to MK4.'

 

Now i spoke to TLFX and they have confirmed that no special pyro was ever made for last year. There is no such thing as a Mk4 bang in a Mk5. This year, the onsite shop was selling MK5's from FBS. Apparently these were fine as they had been sound tested. However, the rules still state no MK5s? Why cant i use my own? Why cant they just admit that this is a deal with the onsite shop to get more purchases and is nothing to do with sound levels.

 

BIO and ammo limits

The rules clearly stated that only BIO ammo was to be used and a max of 600 round per person. Ammo limits were not policed at all, plenty of people running around with box and drum mags from the start. On the topic of BIOs, at the end of Sunday I was emptying my mags with some full auto goodness when a Marshal came up and said 'Just because it's the end of the day, does't mean you need to waste your BB's.' Upon my reply of 'Why? I paid for them' I got a response of 'we have to sweep them all up'... Okay cool, if you're sweeping them, why make me get Bio's then?

 

Questionable marshalling

A few things here, i really don't think that they had enough Marshal's. The marshals that were there, did not seem to communicate at all and some of them were just rude. There was a few places that we were not able to shoot over due to delicate windows. We seemed to get an absolute bollocking for shooting over these areas but tans could fire over them all day long and have no issues. People were getting shouted at all day for this despite nothing being mentioned in the brief, same goes for the hole in the floor I mentioned earlier, how am i mean to know if i'm not told? Also, when you are telling people, maybe just mention it rather than getting your knickers in a twist. Mentioning it on the brief would mean you don't need to tell every player individually. They were not amazing with policing hit taking although really this falls on the players more than anything.

 

One marshal was even taking handfuls of MK5s off people as he didn't realise that they were allowed to be corrected by players... None of them just seemed to actually know the rules.

 

 

 

Anyway, i could probably write more, I just don't see the point. They had so much time to make sure that this went better than the last one and even had the weather on their side this time however the organisation was still piss poor, rules may as-well have been non existent and yet despite people not coming back on the Sunday there was no real effort in my opinions to fix the issue (minus one 40 minute bit of gameplay).

 

 

Nowhere near worth the £90 in my opinion, 2 days at a local site would have been just as good, if not better as they actually would have equalled out the teams and changed game-modes after seeing such a shitshow. The blatant lying about the MK5's really ticked me off too.

 

Some serious changes need to be made if they want to get back to how AI used to be.

 

 

 

[hitmanNo2]

Another shitshow.  What a shocker...

[Impulse]

54 minutes ago, wicksy101 said:

GENERAL BITS

The weekend was off to a questionable start when we realised how many people the other team had compared to us. I think they had over 50 more players after no-shows ect. I really don't know how they can let this happen with an online booking system. Surely they can ask people to move over before the event has started. We were held in our spawn quite a lot over the first day. When asking a marshal on day 2 if they would make anybody move over his response was 'we have'. I kid you not, they got about 5 people over and called it a day 🤣

 

We didn't see the second half of the field at all until the second day at 12pm when they finally decided we were getting fucked so hard they would let us start pretty much at their spawn. Well this was great to see that half of the site but it was too little too late unfortunately and we were back in our spawn within about 40 minutes. I have no idea how they could just watch us sit in the spawn for so long and not think about changing things up sooner. We were pissed off as we could make no progress and im sure the tans were fairly bored sitting around doing not much (Im sure some of them enjoyed the £90 interactive shooting range though)

 

Sounds a bit like last year, honestly. Our group weren't there this time to bolster numbers on green team (I think we brought about 30 last year) because it fell on a Worthing game day, but I do remember that a lot of greens left early last year because of the abysmal weather. Having 50 less players is a massive disadvantage that I experienced first hand last year, so it's a shame to hear they made no effort to balance the teams a bit. I'm sure there were small groups of tans who would've been willing to swap over to green team and it would've made the game far better.

 

Getting locked in the spawn also sounds a lot like last year for the same reason. You'd think they would've sorted that; honestly, the site isn't good for 400 players, but they need the money from ticket sales. Just a bit of a mess really...

 

54 minutes ago, wicksy101 said:

CHRONO

Let's start off by taking a look at the chrono (if you can call it that). I can only assume after some moaning last year about not having one, they thought they should really be doing a chrono this year. Welp, doing a voluntary chrono is certainly not the play they should have made here, they may as-well have not had one. Saying that, at least there were no 8mm BBs flying around like there was last year. Neither did i have blood drawn this year.

 

 

You're totally right here. Voluntary chrono is pointless because you'll get people like me going up to chrono to make sure I'm at the right power and prove that my m21 or VSR is running at 1.1J for no MED (because 1.48J is a joke for DMRs and bolties), but all the people who are intending on running hot guns, will just not chrono. It's common sense; people breaking the rules aren't going to voluntarily rock up and say "hey, by the way I'm cheating and playing dangerously"

 

54 minutes ago, wicksy101 said:

THE PYRO SAGA

Right, this one really got me. This carries on from last year but it triggered me again this year. The rules state the below.

 

'Pyro limited to MK4 anywhere on site. This includes reusable pyro (at the last game TLFX made us some MK5 pyro but with a special bang so they were not as noisy as normal MK5 levels). These will be permitted if anyone has any left or will be sold on site via Ammo Drop. If not bought directly from site though please stick to MK4.'

 

Now i spoke to TLFX and they have confirmed that no special pyro was ever made for last year. There is no such thing as a Mk4 bang in a Mk5. This year, the onsite shop was selling MK5's from FBS. Apparently these were fine as they had been sound tested. However, the rules still state no MK5s? Why cant i use my own? Why cant they just admit that this is a deal with the onsite shop to get more purchases and is nothing to do with sound levels.

 

This had me questioning it last year as well. I fully agreed with the decision to limit bangs to mk4s and below because not everyone had a set of hearing protection (and normal ear plugs are basically "I'm a free stealth kill") or could afford to invest in a set of Earmors or something just before the game, then when I saw the shop selling mk5s I was annoyed. When I heard that they were "mk5s with a mk4 bang" I knew they were lying back then and it's clear they were lying again this year. Also, people weren't following that rule anyway as one of my friends had a thermobaric posted blindly around a corner right into his chest, where it exploded just after impacting. 

 

54 minutes ago, wicksy101 said:

Questionable marshalling

A few things here, i really don't think that they had enough Marshal's. The marshals that were there, did not seem to communicate at all and some of them were just rude. There was a few places that we were not able to shoot over due to delicate windows. We seemed to get an absolute bollocking for shooting over these areas but tans could fire over them all day long and have no issues. People were getting shouted at all day for this despite nothing being mentioned in the brief, same goes for the hole in the floor I mentioned earlier, how am i mean to know if i'm not told? Also, when you are telling people, maybe just mention it rather than getting your knickers in a twist. Mentioning it on the brief would mean you don't need to tell every player individually. They were not amazing with policing hit taking although really this falls on the players more than anything.

 

One marshal was even taking handfuls of MK5s off people as he didn't realise that they were allowed to be corrected by players... None of them just seemed to actually know the rules.

 

Again, this makes me sigh... I had this happen last year to me when I was using my m21. I got pulled aside by a marshall who told me I wasn't allowed to use it because it was a "sniper rifle", while it's just an m14 with a scope and a rifle wrap (and running at 1.1J). I was also told by another marshall "oh, you can't use that indoors" when it was no more powerful than anyone else's m4. Now, I let that one slide because I didn't really go indoors and instead held angles outside, but I run my m21 at 1.1J for a reason; to use it in any situation I need it in. Had to clear it up with one of the head marshalls who said it was fine after I explained it all to him, but it was a situation that shouldn't have happened in the first place.

 

Thanks for the write up @wicksy101 though it's sad to hear that it was another shitshow. Even though I wasn't there, I was hoping they'd take the lessons from last time and learn from them. Roll on next AI500 at a different venue, because that venue is not good for 400 players. Might get away with 300, but I think 200 (100 per side) would be far better, though it probably wouldn't be financially viable.

 

 

Edited April 11, 2022 by Impulse

[Tackle]

I'm afraid, irrespective of the venue, AI are VERY revenue driven (prob due to falling mag sales),as players most of the AI team have had a deserved dubious reputation, which I've witnessed for myself on a few occasions.

leopard changing its spots/old dog new tricks/blah blah blah, it's all relevant, & while I'll never book up for any of their games, as players they've been around long enough & have visited enough top quality sites that you'd would hope they'd make an effort to ensure these expensive events are memorable for the right reasons, put in to practice the aspects from the proven best U.K. sites , but alas their still just trading on their name, & not a good name at that.

I think their days are numbered if they don't do something to inspire customer confidence in themselves as a "brand" ?

[Groot]

2 hours ago, wicksy101 said:

So.... AI500 2022...

 

 

After last years questionable weekend i really thought that some things would have been sorted out... Some of them were, others not so much... Let me start off by saying that there was some really good gameplay from both teams. I was on the green team and despite being outnumbered, most of the team were pushing any trying their best to make the most of a shit situation...

 

Now... onto the nitty gritty. If you have seen any of the posts regarding last year, there were a few main points that came out of them. They mostly mentioned lack of marshalling, complete lack of chrono, poor organisation and communication and less than ideal bottlenecks. Some of these were addressed to an extent but i don't think any of these issues were truly sorted.

 

GENERAL BITS

The weekend was off to a questionable start when we realised how many people the other team had compared to us. I think they had over 50 more players after no-shows ect. I really don't know how they can let this happen with an online booking system. Surely they can ask people to move over before the event has started. We were held in our spawn quite a lot over the first day. When asking a marshal on day 2 if they would make anybody move over his response was 'we have'. I kid you not, they got about 5 people over and called it a day 🤣

 

We didn't see the second half of the field at all until the second day at 12pm when they finally decided we were getting fucked so hard they would let us start pretty much at their spawn. Well this was great to see that half of the site but it was too little too late unfortunately and we were back in our spawn within about 40 minutes. I have no idea how they could just watch us sit in the spawn for so long and not think about changing things up sooner. We were pissed off as we could make no progress and im sure the tans were fairly bored sitting around doing not much (Im sure some of them enjoyed the £90 interactive shooting range though)

 

They made a good attempt this year to avoid the bottlenecks of last year and put up some temp barriers and also covered the sports-field in tarp. This made movement much better than last year.

 

It's worth me mentioning that there was a hole in the floor in one of the buildings. Tape had been put up on either side but nothing was mentioned in the brief including the fact that you cannot shoot down the hallway through the tape (nothing was there to indicate hard cover)

 

 

CHRONO

Let's start off by taking a look at the chrono (if you can call it that). I can only assume after some moaning last year about not having one, they thought they should really be doing a chrono this year. Welp, doing a voluntary chrono is certainly not the play they should have made here, they may as-well have not had one. Saying that, at least there were no 8mm BBs flying around like there was last year. Neither did i have blood drawn this year.

 

THE PYRO SAGA

Right, this one really got me. This carries on from last year but it triggered me again this year. The rules state the below.

 

'Pyro limited to MK4 anywhere on site. This includes reusable pyro (at the last game TLFX made us some MK5 pyro but with a special bang so they were not as noisy as normal MK5 levels). These will be permitted if anyone has any left or will be sold on site via Ammo Drop. If not bought directly from site though please stick to MK4.'

 

Now i spoke to TLFX and they have confirmed that no special pyro was ever made for last year. There is no such thing as a Mk4 bang in a Mk5. This year, the onsite shop was selling MK5's from FBS. Apparently these were fine as they had been sound tested. However, the rules still state no MK5s? Why cant i use my own? Why cant they just admit that this is a deal with the onsite shop to get more purchases and is nothing to do with sound levels.

 

BIO and ammo limits

The rules clearly stated that only BIO ammo was to be used and a max of 600 round per person. Ammo limits were not policed at all, plenty of people running around with box and drum mags from the start. On the topic of BIOs, at the end of Sunday I was emptying my mags with some full auto goodness when a Marshal came up and said 'Just because it's the end of the day, does't mean you need to waste your BB's.' Upon my reply of 'Why? I paid for them' I got a response of 'we have to sweep them all up'... Okay cool, if you're sweeping them, why make me get Bio's then?

 

Questionable marshalling

A few things here, i really don't think that they had enough Marshal's. The marshals that were there, did not seem to communicate at all and some of them were just rude. There was a few places that we were not able to shoot over due to delicate windows. We seemed to get an absolute bollocking for shooting over these areas but tans could fire over them all day long and have no issues. People were getting shouted at all day for this despite nothing being mentioned in the brief, same goes for the hole in the floor I mentioned earlier, how am i mean to know if i'm not told? Also, when you are telling people, maybe just mention it rather than getting your knickers in a twist. Mentioning it on the brief would mean you don't need to tell every player individually. They were not amazing with policing hit taking although really this falls on the players more than anything.

 

One marshal was even taking handfuls of MK5s off people as he didn't realise that they were allowed to be corrected by players... None of them just seemed to actually know the rules.

 

 

 

Anyway, i could probably write more, I just don't see the point. They had so much time to make sure that this went better than the last one and even had the weather on their side this time however the organisation was still piss poor, rules may as-well have been non existent and yet despite people not coming back on the Sunday there was no real effort in my opinions to fix the issue (minus one 40 minute bit of gameplay).

 

 

Nowhere near worth the £90 in my opinion, 2 days at a local site would have been just as good, if not better as they actually would have equalled out the teams and changed game-modes after seeing such a shitshow. The blatant lying about the MK5's really ticked me off too.

 

Some serious changes need to be made if they want to get back to how AI used to be.

 

 

 

[hunter511]

Been to 2 AI500 events, Rype Village and the Sandpit. Both of which were marked by a lack of marshaling (including AI staff stopping the UCAP marshals from calling people on poor hit-taking etc).

 

I have a theory that the winner is predetermined before the weekend starts as from the two times Ive attended it would be 'challenging' to actually accidentally run a game as lopsidedly as the AI staff seem to. 

 

Either way its pretty obvious that despite the rolling shitshow that the AI500 routinely is people will still pay £90 to attend. 

Edited April 19, 2022 by hunter511
less rant, more legibility and horrendous spelling

[Dalerj94]

 

Did post this in the 2021 thread - but needs bumping in here too given my oversight (sorry admin). Team Sasquatch, CT17 Charlie division, footage from day 1 at AI500 Zero Hour - part 2 and footage from day 2 incoming. Give it a like & comment (and share if you please 😉) for us, cheers all, happy airsofting! 👍

[Dalerj94]

 

Day one part 2 - day 2 to follow, as above give it a bit of love; thanks all!

[Cannonfodder]

On 11/04/2022 at 11:58, Tackle said:

most of the AI team have had a deserved dubious reputation

I've only knowingly played against one of them and my god was he a cheating cunt (at least 5 people opening up on him, seeing the shots bounce off him but he carried on). I get the impression alot of it is a case of "let us do what we want or we'll give the site a shit review" 

[Dalerj94]

 

Following above Day 2 of the event from perspective of CT17 Charlie division is up now - thanks again to all for watching and giving it some love!

[Skullchewer]

Read the room, dude...

 

 

 

 

 

[wicksy101]

Anybody go to AI500 this weekend? I didn’t go but after posts in the Facebook page and the organisers threatening to call the police for harassment over some memes I need a little more information 😂