How To Treat The New Players – You Need To Read This

New Players Are The Future. How Do We Keep Them?

There is a certain life cycle to the game of airsoft from when you are one of the new players, to when you have some experience and become one of the grizzled regulars at your local airsoft field. We’ve all experienced it, and chances are not all of our experiences were overwhelmingly positive. If we’re being honest with each other, new players are the life blood of our hobby, and without them it cannot grow and prosper and give us even more people to share it with, so how do we keep them around?

 

Offer advice, constructively, not critically.

We all see the new players when they screw up. If your experience is anything like mine, it’s been the root cause for several walks to respawn or unnecessary shots to unprotected parts of your body because someone had poor trigger discipline. It’s very easy to get upset when these moments happen, but you have to put yourself in the new player’s shoes. This may have been you or one of your regular squad mates in the past. We can teach the new players without screaming at them, belittling them or generally being the jerk player that makes sure the new guys never come back.

Does the new guy run around constantly flagging you with the barrel of his airsoft gun? Politely instruct him why it’s necessary to pay attention to his gun safety.

Does the new guy bunch behind cover? Help him find somewhere better to post up. Give him some covering fire to get there safely.

Does the new guy have gear that clearly doesn’t suit their play style? Offer some advice, some recommendations or show him why you like the stuff you use.

Be kind, be patient, and teach instead of ridicule.

Be The Mentor You Wish You Had When You Started

We’ve all had a negative experience from our time as a new player. We couldn’t figure out what hop up was, or how to get our guns to shoot straight. Nobody ever explained to peek around cover and not over it. You accidentally flagged someone and got chewed out because you didn’t know better. We’re all human, we’ve all made mistakes.

It’s important to be the mentor to new players that you wish you had when you first started playing airsoft. This is the golden rule, treat others the way you wish to be treated. Take a new player under your wing, show him the cool hiding spots or popular flanking routes on your field. Teach them small unit tactics so they become someone you want to play alongside, and someone who will challenge you when you have to play against them.

Use our first tip, and offer advice constructively, not critically. Don’t be afraid to lend some bb’s from your speed loader to the rental kid. Lend some gear to your new player friends so they can have a better experience. Teach them how to properly set a hop up. Everything you do to make the new guys have more fun, makes them stick around for the long haul and ultimately make airsoft better.

 

Solve Problems. Don’t Create Them.

Every new player has one key thing in common. They’re going to run into some problems. Sometimes, these problems are technical like an issue with their gun or gear. Other times, these problems can be with other players. Often, new players are afraid to seek help for fear of looking “like a noob” and that can put a burden on them that ultimately leads to their not sticking with a new hobby or seeking bad advice from the less savory parts of the internet.

Whenever you have the chance, try to help these players solve their problems, and try not to be the cause of them.

You can do this by:

• Calling your hits
• helping fix the simple issues when you can
• grabbing an admin or referee to help new players deal with problems on field
• offering to show them the ropes and squad up

There are more ways than that to help out new players, but this should get you started. Remember, the key here is to help, not hurt the new guys.

Do Your Part To Make Airsoft Awesome

The easier we make it for new players to get involved, the better our favorite hobby will be for it in the long run. If we want to increase player counts at events, increase innovation in the industry by having more players for companies to make guns for, and overall make things even better for all of us, it starts with how we treat the new players.

Stay excellent to each other.

Want to pick up your own guns and gear to help out the new guys? Click HERE.