“Take that hit! I saw it bounce off you!” How many times have we heard that immortal line, or even yelled it over the top of our rifles as we pepper some unfortunate opponent behind a bush or window frame? Then there are the times you have accompanied a disgruntled teammate chuntering away about “those bloody blues, not taking their hits” as you trudged the long path back to the dead zone? If you’ve taken part in just a couple of airsoft skirmishes, you’ve probably experienced one of the above situations already.
Knowing if you have hit somebody is going to be one of the eternal quirks of airsoft, it’s one of the first things any newcomer asks and its part of its charm. The idea that a group of guys can get together and be sporting enough for an honour based system to work well enough for everyone to have a good time.
Problem is, it doesn’t always work like that does it? Sometimes, even with the best marshalling, you can come across somebody not exactly invested in the spirit of the game, and it’s easy to get wound up by it. Obviously, you can deal with this frustration in a few ways; I’ve certainly been witness to a few “solutions”.
You could flick it round to auto, break cover and blast of the rest of your mag blindly, holding the trigger until somebody shouts “hit!”, but it rarely gets results.
You could call a marshal to check the situation out, but even with the best site management, they are not always around.
Then, in my opinion, there’s the worst thing to do. You can start yelling out, calling “cheat” and quietly moaning to your team mates after the event.
Ok, you’re probably confused now… Why’s that the worst thing to do? Well, it’s simple when you think about it. A little moaning causes a negative response from all involved, and it spreads like wildfire. All it takes is one accusation of cheating and that’s it, the negativity spreads as word gets around that the other team “ain’t taking their hits”. At this point, instead of acknowledging hits honestly and sportingly, players start to bend the rules to compensate, maybe not accepting that glancing shot to the hand as they ducked round the door, it was a ricochet, right?
Before long the opposing team catches wind of this and the game breaks down, you might as well be pouring BBs down the drain for all the good they’ll do now.
So, what do we do as a community to prevent this from happening? It’s easy really, you take your hits. Getting shot isn’t as counter-productive as you might think. Adopting a benefit of the doubt attitude is the best thing to combat a negative attitude at a game, and if everybody is doing the same thing, the game as a whole will be more enjoyable.
It works both ways, and it’s essential it does. If you’re firing at a target, think you probably hit them, try and reverse the situation. How many near misses have you had in the past? What about those times you ducked out the way of a stream of BBs, matrix style or what about that lone blade of grass an oncoming BB took a deflection off of at the last moment? Give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe it didn’t hit them, maybe they made an honest mistake.
Next time you think you might have taken a hit, but you’re not sure, don’t hesitate; just give your opponent the benefit of the doubt, maybe he just got lucky? It’s not that far to the dead zone anyway, and didn’t you need to mag up?
We all want to tell our tales of heroism but we’re playing airsoft, and at some point you are going to get shot. That’s the great thing about it, no matter how much kit you collect, how dialled in your guns are or how good your knowledge of the site is, sometimes little Jimmy Newbie with the rental gun is going to get the drop on you. Why don’t you make his day, congratulate him on getting a good hit and walk back to the dead zone with a smile?
All this sounds sickeningly idealistic, but as long as we’re all playing by these rules and adopting the same positive outlook on the game, everybody has a better experience, because what goes around comes around. Give your opponent the benefit of the doubt, and before long, you’ll be pulling off shots you thought were impossible, instead of moaning we’ll all have better stories to tell after the game.
No comments:
Post a Comment