USPSA Nationals Shooting Challenge Difficulty Poll

[bret]

1 minute ago, seadog_99 said:

 

That's what B shooters generally do, win a stage once in a while and then finish overall just above the middle of the pack.


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I think it's funny a GM complaining about 1 stage in a match because he didn't do well on it.

I didn't do that we'll on it, not because the stage was too hard but because I made a mistake, I think it was a good stage.

[seadog_99]

I think it's funny a GM complaining about 1 stage in a match because he didn't do well on it.

I didn't do that we'll on it, not because the stage was too hard but because I made a mistake, I think it was a good stage.

I read that he was concerned/curious about more than just one stage and from MD standpoint wonders how other shooters feel about the match so that he can adapt his own offerings to better align with what shooters want....but I could be WAY off.


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[bret]

2 minutes ago, seadog_99 said:

I don't take the OP's intent on this thread to be "change the game to fit the elite" as much as "make sure the game doesn't just become lop-sided on the side of difficulty OR speed". I didn't shoot Lim or Open Nats so I can't speak about the stages but I HAVE shot matches that were so much of a grind that I didn't enjoy them much.


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I shot Limited, Worked L10/Open.

it wasn't a grind.

My take on his comment about stage 9 was due to GM's not doing well on it, it was not an easy stage but it was Nationals, not all stages should be easy.

[wav3rhythm]

A national championship should be a fair test of skill. It should test skills that probably don't get tested at local matches with a lot of regularity (sho, who, prone...).

I think the problem is when a stage crosses the line and becomes a game of chance rather than skill. For example, if you were to paste two no-shoots on a swinger at 15yds and then shoot those from a swinging bridge, it's anyone's guess who can win that stage. Any challenge presented should measure skill versus someone getting lucky.


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[bret]

Just now, seadog_99 said:

 

I read that he was concerned/curious about more than just one stage and from MD standpoint wonders how other shooters feel about the match so that he can adapt his own offerings to better align with what shooters want....but I could be WAY off.


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all stages were good, I am just a C shooter, I wouldn't have changed any of them, I didn't complain or question any of them.

Nationals is not the same as a club match, or even level II, they should test all skills, apparently strong hand and weak hand give everyone, including GM's a hard time.

It was a great match, great stages.

[CHA-LEE]

Everyone is entitled to their opinions on the subject just like everyone has different likes or dislikes.

My individual performance on Stage 9 really does not matter. Truth be told, I went into that stage with the mindset of taking as long as it takes to break solid clean shots. The lighting was crappy when I shot that stage so seeing my sights clearly was difficult but I still tried my best to take my time and break clean shots. I ended up with 4 misses all less than an inch into the hardcover. Some times you are lucky, some times you are not, especially when it comes to a stage that is rooted in luck like this one. This time I was unlucky.

What does matter is when 97% of the competitors shooting the stage can't do it penalty free. When 97% of the competitors can't shoot a stage penalty free there is something WAY wrong with it regardless of people liking the stage or not.

I also think its crappy when a stage like this determines who the national champion will be and that is exactly what it did. Nils and Bob V beat everyone else by 5% so they were clearly the only two in contention for the national title. The unrealistic shooting challenge of stage 9 robed Bob V of a national title. Bob had 4 misses total for the whole match and 3 of them were on that retarded stage. I am not a Bob V nut swinger, but if I was in his shoes I would have been pissed that a single retarded stage that 97% of the competitors failed on as well cost me a national title. Do we really want to determine national titles by Luck? Because that is exactly what happened this year.

[bret]

20 minutes ago, CHA-LEE said:

Everyone is entitled to their opinions on the subject just like everyone has different likes or dislikes.

My individual performance on Stage 9 really does not matter. Truth be told, I went into that stage with the mindset of taking as long as it takes to break solid clean shots. The lighting was crappy when I shot that stage so seeing my sights clearly was difficult but I still tried my best to take my time and break clean shots. I ended up with 4 misses all less than an inch into the hardcover. Some times you are lucky, some times you are not, especially when it comes to a stage that is rooted in luck like this one. This time I was unlucky.

What does matter is when 97% of the competitors shooting the stage can't do it penalty free. When 97% of the competitors can't shoot a stage penalty free there is something WAY wrong with it regardless of people liking the stage or not.

I also think its crappy when a stage like this determines who the national champion will be and that is exactly what it did. Nils and Bob V beat everyone else by 5% so they were clearly the only two in contention for the national title. The unrealistic shooting challenge of stage 9 robed Bob V of a national title. Bob had 4 misses total for the whole match and 3 of them were on that retarded stage. I am not a Bob V nut swinger, but if I was in his shoes I would have been pissed that a single retarded stage that 97% of the competitors failed on as well cost me a national title. Do we really want to determine national titles by Luck? Because that is exactly what happened this year.

I don't think its luck, it is testing a different skill set.

how do you determine 97% of the people failed on stage 9?

72 people out of 276 Zero'd the stage.

that is not a 97% failure rate.

my friend that shot stage 9 clean had 1 Mike on the 1st stage, 1 Mike 1 NS on his last stage, so he had 2 Mike's 1 NS the whole match. he is just a B shooter.

it wasn't that he got lucky on stage 9, he was prepared for it.

Bob wasn't robbed of anything.

Nationals is supposed to test all skills, stage 9 was part of the skill set required to win a National Championship.

Edited October 26, 2016 by bret

[CHA-LEE]

I am deeming "Failure" as shooters not being able to finish a stage without racking up penalties. 97% of the shooters failed to complete that stage without at least one penalty.

As for your B class friend that shot Stage 9 clean, good for him. When I look at the results of that stage he had a stage time that was 10 seconds slower than the average competitive time. Your friend also shot the whole match 153 seconds slower than the top two finishers, meaning that he sacrificed shooting quickly for improved accuracy. His turtle slow hit everything strategy was also not the winning formula even within his classification. So lets not use an anomaly such as him to deem if a stage is a valid reasonable shooting challenge for everyone or not. Look at the overall results of that stage. 97% of the shooters (From World Champs to D class shooters) got their ass handed to them on it. If 97% of the shooters can't succeed on the stage penalty free then its too hard!!!  

Edited October 26, 2016 by CHA-LEE

[motosapiens]

sounds to me like L1 and L2 MD's should put more SHO, WHO, prone, long shots, etc.. into their matches.

[motosapiens]

18 minutes ago, CHA-LEE said:

If 97% of the shooters can't succeed on the stage penalty free then its too hard!!!  

Or 97% of the shooters tried to shoot faster than they actually can at that distance.

[bret]

12 minutes ago, CHA-LEE said:

I am deeming "Failure" as shooters not being able to finish a stage without racking up penalties. 97% of the shooters failed to complete that stage without at least one penalty.

As for your B class friend that shot Stage 9 clean, good for him. When I look at the results of that stage he had a stage time that was 10 seconds slower than the average competitive time. Your friend also shot the whole match 153 seconds slower than the top two finishers, meaning that he sacrificed shooting quickly for improved accuracy. His turtle slow hit everything strategy was also not the winning formula even within his classification. So lets not use an anomaly such as him to deem if a stage is a valid reasonable shooting challenge for everyone or not. Look at the overall results of that stage. 97% of the shooters (From World Champs to D class shooters) got their ass handed to them on it. If 97% of the shooters can't succeed on the stage penalty free then its too hard!!!  

your math is wrong, 23% of the 276 shot stage 9 clean.

his turtle slow approach to stage 9 helped him be in the 23% that shot it clean.

Speed, Accuracy, Power.

In this stage it was not all about speed.

He finished 2nd in his Class for the match.

Where did in you place in your class?

he was 100 seconds slower than you were, he is a B shooter. you are a GM, this was his 1st Nationals, he was 143 seconds slower than Nils, not 153, so his approach placed him pretty well in the standings for his class.

I am just a C class shooter, didn't do as well as I should have, especially on stage 9, but it was still a good stage, and good match, Nationals shouldn't be easy, not even for the GM's, if it's easy for the GM's, it's not a true test. 

[motosapiens]

do people actually care about where they finished in their class? lol.

[bret]

17 minutes ago, motosapiens said:

Or 97% of the shooters tried to shoot faster than they actually can at that distance.

12 people out of 276 shot it clean, by Charlie's definition of failure, 77% failed at shooting stage 9, not 97%.

he also thinks that my friend that shot it clean, was too slow since he shot it 10 seconds slower than the match winner, but Nils had 1 Mike on it, did Nils fail at stage 9, even though this is the stage Charley said the match came down to?

It was a good stage.

[bret]

1 minute ago, motosapiens said:

do people actually care about where they finished in their class? lol.

not everyone is a GM

[motosapiens]

1 minute ago, bret said:

not everyone is a GM

i'm certainly not a GM, but I find it less self-limiting to compare my scores to the winners, and try to improve my percentage from year to year rather than hope that everyone who practices bumps up to a higher class so i can 'win'.

But whatever..... back to the question of whether nats was too hard.... I wasn't there this year so I don't know. I have a lot of respect for cha-lee's experience and abilities tho, so I believe him when he said it was significantly harder than other matches. I think in general, it's reasonable for nationals to be a *little* harder, but I think it's a problem if it's radically harder or different than other major matches. That would be like always playing the superbowl indoors even tho many (most?) pro games are played outside. wait, what? lol.

[bret]

if it wasn't hard for the GM's, it would not be a true test.

I am just a C shooter, I don't think it was too hard.

I need more experience and practice, it's not because the match too hard.

 

[Fowlmouths]

4 hours ago, SWprotected said:

At a nationals level event I do look for some increased difficulty, but this year the match was a grind. The stages had plenty of places to rack up penalties and when every stage is that way it makes the match less like fun and more like work.

This exactly!  

I prefer shooting on the move type stages.  There was none of that at this year's Nationals.  Just like Charlie said it was move stop shoot, repeat!

[Fowlmouths]

5 hours ago, SWprotected said:

 

 

Edited October 26, 2016 by Fowlmouths
Double tap

[IronArcher]

Still kind of looking at this a bit differently.

Is a stage too hard? Only if you are worried about going faster than the next guy.

If most can't shoot it without a penalty, it's probably not a good stage in my book.
We can make stages incredibly difficult so everyone has to shoot super slow... I thought that was IPDAs schtick.
When is a stage too easy?
A bill drill is easy..... until people start throwing down 1.6 seconds/all alphas.... in production.


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[motosapiens]

11 minutes ago, IronArcher said:

If most can't shoot it without a penalty, it's probably not a good stage in my book.
 

Was the problem that most *couldn't* shoot it without a penalty?

Or that most didn't pay enough attention to fundamentals to shoot it without a penalty because they weren't used to such hard shots?

[CHA-LEE]

Match directors need to gear their product to their customer base to maximize value and enjoyment. That is at least if they want shooters to continue attending their match. If I create a very difficult stage where 50%+ of the shooters can't shoot it penalty free, then I deem it as being too hard for the average customer base and make adjustments to my shooting challenges for the next match to make the shots more obtainable. This customer product tuning takes time and as the average skill level improves the shooting challenges should also increase in difficulty. This takes research, testing, and learning to fine tune the product to match the needs of the customer base. 

The reality is that most shooters associate their match performance with the quantity of penalties they rack up during the match and not so much their hit factors or stage times. Someone could have a 20 second death jam on a stage but still get all of their hits and not feel as bad about it as having a decent stage time and racking the same amount of shooting penalties that would equal 20 seconds of added time.

The average amount of misses from the Limited nationals was 15 - 17 across all shooters. When was the last time you went to ANY match and felt good about your performance when racking up double digit mikes regardless of where you finished? I heard a lot of grumbling and frustration from many shooters while attending the Limited Nationals. Just because we can setup stages that kick everyone in the nuts doesn't mean that is the proper match product that should be deployed. Regardless of the shooting difficulty of the stages the top shooters are still going to be able to segregate themselves from others in stage time and points shot. So making ultra difficult shooting challenges for everyone to grind through is not even needed to determine who the national champion will be.

At the start of this thread I said I have two view points on this. As a shooter, I don't care really because everyone has to eat the same shit sandwich. But I will voice my displeasure by not investing in going to the match in the future. For example, after this past Limited nationals I am never going back to the Universal Shooting Academy range. Its a waste of time and money as the product provided isn't worth the cost in attending.

As a match director there is no way I would have put several of the shooting challenge in the Limited Nationals because its a disservice to the bulk of the competitors and would reduce the value and enjoyment of the match. Maybe I am an enigma of an MD, but I would prefer shooters enjoy the stages and be able to hit the targets verses creating disaster stages which shooters are forced to simply survive.     

Edited October 26, 2016 by CHA-LEE

[bret]

1 hour ago, motosapiens said:

Was the problem that most *couldn't* shoot it without a penalty?

Or that most didn't pay enough attention to fundamentals to shoot it without a penalty because they weren't used to such hard shots?

some stages you can't blaze away on, stage 9 was one of them.

[bret]

49 minutes ago, CHA-LEE said:

 

At the start of this thread I said I have two view points on this. As a shooter, I don't care really because everyone has to eat the same shit sandwich. But I will voice my displeasure by not investing in going to the match in the future. For example, after this past Limited nationals I am never going back to the Universal Shooting Academy range. Its a waste of time and money as the product provided isn't worth the cost in attending.

Sounds like you didn't do as well as you thought you would and you blame the stages.

[CHA-LEE]

Just now, bret said:

Sounds like you didn't do as well as you thought you would and you blame the stages.

Not at all. Even if I would have gotten lucky and had all my hits on Stage 9 I would still consider the stage too difficult for the masses. Just because you survive a train wreck does not mean that the train wreck was needed to prove that you can survive one.

[PPGMD]

I didn't shoot the Limited Nationals, but I shot the Hurricane Nationals which had similar stages.

National and World level matches should have some hard stages in a technical sense. But this year I felt that they balanced it much better than last year, and certainly was much better balanced than the World Shoot.

Yes a D or even some GM class shooter might not be able to shoot the match clean, but then they know what they need to work on. I know I got 7 damn mikes on stage 9, and I know that I need to work on my weak hand only shooting (in fact I was just on the range practicing that this afternoon).

Edited October 26, 2016 by PPGMD