2013 production nats vs limited/open/l10 nats (difficulty)

[motosapiens]

a little bird told me the difficulty of the shots and stages at production nationals were somewhere between 'low' and 'extremely low' difficulty. I wasn't there, so I was wondering if anyone who shot production and also shot in st george could compare the difficulty levels....

(edited to reflect the focus on difficulty/tightness of shots rather than 'difficulty' of the match)

Edited October 24, 2013 by motosapiens

[BritinUSA]

As a spectator I would say that the Limited Nationals looked harder than Production. Neither match was 'difficult', But its the other competitors that make the match harder. If everyone is shooting at a high level then even the easiest stage carries a high 'disaster factor'.

I would have like to have seen more difficulty on the small stages (like they do in IPSC) that really challenge every aspect of the competitor's abilities.

[motosapiens]

Thinking about this caused me to go lok at the results, and I found that the top 5 shooters at limited nats all had penalties, between 20 and 60 pts, whereas the top 5 shooters in production nats all had zero penalties.

[MarkCO]

I don't think you can directly compare scores and penalties. They are after all different divisions.

The best shooters still win no matter what you do to the stages. Easier stages tend to let the faster shooters "middle of the pack" shooters have a little better placement and percentage, harder stages tend to let more technical shooters have a little better placement and percentage. The GMs can typically do both, so it does not matter to them.

I tend to do better at harder, slower stages and I felt the stages at Production Nationals were a decent test.

[whitedog]

Our own difficulties we make. Call our own shots we do.

Master Yoda.

Or Mike Seeklander, maybe. ?

[motosapiens]

I don't think you can directly compare scores and penalties. They are after all different divisions.

I shoot different divisions, and I think I can directly compare scores and penalties, although to some extent, minor scoring does force one to be more accurate than major scoring, so maybe that is reflected in the penalties as well as in the total points.

At any rate, I'm not trying to be judgemental, just curious. Obviously the competition is just as hard. In general, I think less difficult stages (not as many tight shots) increase the consequences of a mistake, or shift the mistakes to other things like muffing a reload or over-running a target.

It's purely a discussion for curiousity's sake because I heard a shooter with vast national experience say this was one of the easiest ones he's shot in terms of shooting difficulty.

[sperman]

The Production Nationals reminded me a lot of Single Stack Nationals I've shot in the past. Very straightforward stages, no real tricks, just get good hits really fast. Most of the targets were wide open with no hard cover or no shoots. The stage I worked probably had the 3 smallest scoring zones of the match, and even then there was plenty of A zone if you took the time to aim. I think most of the targets were in the 10 to 15 yard range, but I didn't measure any distances. The most challenging part of the match was the number of swingers. Getting aggressive on what you shot between the activator and the moving target could buy you some time, or buy you some problems.

Having said all of that, I still really enjoyed the match, and think it was as good a test as any to determine a national champion.

[MarkCO]

It's purely a discussion for curiousity's sake because I heard a shooter with vast national experience say this was one of the easiest ones he's shot in terms of shooting difficulty.

Did you ask him what his percentage was in this match versus those past "easier" matches?

With the phenomenally deep talent pool at the top, and Grauffel putting 5% on our National Champion, the scores still look about the same. 25th place was 83, 78 and 79% in 2011, 2012, 2013. 10th was 91, 84, 84 the last three. Minus the 5% edge of Grauffel, not statistically different. If the match was "easier" one would expect the scores to compress some, and they did not.

[CHA-LEE]

I shot the Limited Nationals but not the Production. So I can't speak to the shot difficulty in the Production match. For the Limited Nationals if I had to rate the shot difficulty on a 1 - 10 scale, with 10 being the hardest, I would have given it a rating of 7. The Limited Nationals had a fairly heavy bias towards every stage having at least some difficult shots but all were doable by all classification levels if they simply took their time and broke clean shots. The only stage that I thought was disproportionally hard from a shooting challenge perspective was stage 16. That bad boy resulted in a 90% failure rate from a shooting penalty perspective. When I look at the Production Nationals results there are no stages that resulted in even close to a 40% failure rate much less a 90% failure rate.

The easiest way to evaluate the total shooting penalties accumulated by the top 10 shooters in each division. This is a better way to get an understanding of the general shooting challenge difficulty of the match. I compiled the data below and from what it looks like the Open match was the hardest based on accumulated shooting penalties. This to me makes sense as most of the stage "Changes" from the Limited to the Open match was to add more no shoots and hard cover to the existing open targets. The data below also makes it glaringly evident that the Production nationals had significantly easier shot difficulty than the Limited or Open Nationals.

Open - 25 Misses, 17 No Shoots

Limited - 27 Misses, 11 No Shoots

Production - 8 Misses, 0 No Shoots

[motosapiens]

It's purely a discussion for curiousity's sake because I heard a shooter with vast national experience say this was one of the easiest ones he's shot in terms of shooting difficulty.

Did you ask him what his percentage was in this match versus those past "easier" matches?

With the phenomenally deep talent pool at the top, and Grauffel putting 5% on our National Champion, the scores still look about the same. 25th place was 83, 78 and 79% in 2011, 2012, 2013. 10th was 91, 84, 84 the last three. Minus the 5% edge of Grauffel, not statistically different. If the match was "easier" one would expect the scores to compress some, and they did not.

You *sound* as tho you think I'm complaining or have an axe to grind and you're trying to argue with me. I'm not, so don't. I was just idly curious and wondering what others think. I enjoy easier stages and also more challenging stages. They both offer their own challenges.

I do think you make some good points regarding 'compression' of stage scores as another way of looking at difficulty. That's worth thinking further, thanks for bringing it up.

CHA-LEE>

For the Limited Nationals if I had to rate the shot difficulty on a 1 - 10 scale, with 10 being the hardest, I would have given it a rating of 7

Thanks charlie, I know you also have vast experience so I appreciate your thoughts. The open/l10 match was the only nationals I've shot (so far), so it's interesting to put things in perspective. I certainly didn't think it was too hard (until my rear sight fell off).

I agree with you that stage 16 was brutal for the limited match. Fortunately they dumbed it down for open/l10. I seem to recall you were at area 1, which had a similar stage, which turned into a similar trainwreck for many people (including myself). I managed to squeak by unscathed in the open/L10 version (without the weak-hand string).

[MarkCO]

motosapiens, I don't think you are complaining at all. Just a good discussion.

[The Antichrome]

I shot Production Nats and I thought that the stages were "easy" but not too easy. It kept the speed up, which is fun.

They lulled people into a false sense of security. 10-12 yards, open target...easy right?

But dont shoot a Charlie, or you are sunk.

Lots of open targets, most up close, and still, people racked up plenty of Mikes.

Having said that, there were no 'trick' stages, no 'hard' shots, and no odd or difficult shooting positions/stances.

[kevin c]

I've shot the Production Nationals the past six years in a row, and shot L10 five of those years when it was part of the back to back venues apart from Production.

There was a lot more target area to shoot at with less penalty and hard cover over or near it in this year's Production Nationals compared to prior years. In prior years the Production and other division stages were necessarily similar. This year, I don't know because I didn't go to St. George.

I would have been mike free this match if I hadn't missed a couple swingers, and had just one NS penalty besides that. I had a lot more misses and penalties in previous years, and no, it's not because I was markedly better this year.

That said, I enjoyed the match, and Grauffel and Stoeger still stomped me, along with the usual hundred or so other better shooters.

[CDPMatt]

Nobody wants to shoot at hardcover and no shoot targets all the time. Although, all open targets gets boring as well. It takes a good mix.... I shot both matches and enjoyed both.

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[ErichF]

At the Production Nats, three of my four Mikes were on wide open, "easy" paper. I have never seen so many swingers in a match, but I managed to get all my hits on them, except for one on the third day.

I agree with many here who have said that the "easy" stages aren't really any easier, since the compensation by the shooter is to blow through it faster. Speed wins, but it also kills, in this game.

I have FPV videos of every stage (except for 17) on my Vimeo channel if anyone that couldn't go wants to see them first-hand.