Alliance Selection System [Archive]

Nemo

16-04-2012, 18:05

I've seen a few gripes about the serpentine draft system lately. My heavily truncated summary of this debate is as follows:

1-8, 1-8: Rewards the best teams more often
1-8, 8-1: Makes elimination rounds more interesting

So I have a pointed question for the 1-8, 1-8 proponents. Would you support a draft system that went 1,1,2,2,3,3... ? It is the logical extension of the arguments favoring 1-8, 1-8. The top captain gets a big advantage. If Alliance 1 wins, then the first and second picks of the draft both qualify for the Championship.

Some old (closed) threads about serpentine draft:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37145
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=41298
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44986
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45667
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66374

ChristopherSD

16-04-2012, 18:11

I just want the best teams to win, and the worst teams to not win.

Bob Steele

16-04-2012, 18:25

Obviously your method would pretty much guarantee that the first seeded alliance would win the regional. If you pick the best three teams and put them all together it is too big of an advantage.

I have coached under both 1-8-,1-8 and 1-8, 8-1 and I think that both give opportunities for a somewhat balanced elimination round.

I also don't think that given the way qualifications have determined the top 8 for quite a number of years, that the #1 Captain necessarily has the best team/robot at the regional.

Many years you will see that the qualification schedule is a great equalizer and many times the best team on the field will not necessarily be the #1 Alliance Captain.

That being the case, a better indicator of the most desirable or best team at a given event is given by the #1 picked robot.

The 1-8 8-1 picking system gives the eight teams the best shot at forming competitive alliances...

Alliance #1 gets the first pick and the 16th pick (ave = 8.5)
Alliance #2 gets the 2nd pick and the 15th pick (ave = 8.5)

....
Alliance #8 gets the 8th and 9th picks.... (ave = 8.5) and has the advantage of making those picks consecutively....which means they can actually pick a pair of robots that have complimentary features.

The real issues in picking come when teams decline. It is conceivable that the #1 alliance could try to pick several good alliance partners that decline (because they are in the top 8) So this can work against the strategy.

I, for one, like the 1-8 and 8-1 system... I think it makes an interesting elimination....

Whoever said that FIRST is trying to get the three best robots to go to Championship? from a regional?

How would you ever figure that out? Certainly seeding can't do it unless you have a huge number of matches....pick order can't do it really because of the opportunity to decline...unless you just take the pick order and not the acceptance order...and where do you place the #1 Alliance team (they CAN'T be picked by anyone.)

A point system similar to what districts are using could be used...but then again without individual stats you still have problems... points from a match may have nothing to do with all three of the robots that were on the winning alliance.

You have to pick a system and use it... nothing is ever going to give you perfect results.

LoweIQ

16-04-2012, 18:25

The best teams don't always seed first.
Especially this year, with the coop bridge worth so much.

Non-serpentine rewards a better performance during qualifications, which I don't think should be done.

Serpentine also gives the lower seeds a higher chance of being successful, which (in my opinion,) is important, because everyone deserves a chance to win, and because sometimes great teams seed low, especially in tougher tournaments (and with coopertition being such a wild card.)

GBK

16-04-2012, 18:32

Want to make it real interesting? What if you could not pick within the original 8

LeelandS

16-04-2012, 18:44

I can understand your gripes. but a 1,1,1,2,2,2,3,3,3... draft would almost eliminate all the competition in FRC. Even if the best team didn't seed first, they still have the pick of the next two best teams at the event. If the best, or one of the best, seeded first, they would just kill all the competition.

I personally like the 1-8, 8-1 draft. Some members of my team disagree, but if the best team already has their pick of the first team, giving them the (theoretical) 17th best team at a competition, they still have an amazing chance at winning (likewise with the next few seeds, who still get comparatively amazing picks). a 1-8,8-1 draft adequately rewards teams for earning their seeding place, while not putting an unnecessarily high winning chance on the 1st seeded alliance.

David Smellie

16-04-2012, 18:57

Want to make it real interesting? What if you could not pick within the original 8

This has been tried before and what ends up happening is that teams lower their rank to end up outside of the top 8.

BrendanB

16-04-2012, 19:04

This has been tried before and what ends up happening is that teams lower their rank to end up outside of the top 8.
^This!

Additionally if there are only 8 good teams at such an event, River Rage is a no picking inside the top 8, you have one good robot on an alliance and two not so great robots with them and it makes it extremely dull to watch and harder to win.

1-8, 8-1 is one of the best methods unless you have an extremely deep field like IRI where picking 1-8, 1-8 leads to some pretty even alliances of great teams surprisingly.

DampRobot

16-04-2012, 19:25

This has been tried before and what ends up happening is that teams lower their rank to end up outside of the top 8.

I've heard this argument a lot for not being able to pick from the floor, and to me, it has always had a few flaws.

First, FRC really stresses GP. Lowering your rank purposefully in this system would definitively not be GP, at least in my opinion.

Of course, just because something is not seen by some as GP does not mean other teams will not attempt it. So, yes, having a rule about not picking within the top eight would tempt teams to lower their rank purposefully.

However, even now there are situations where teams can try to "game the system" in order to get on a more competitive alliance. For example, many have mentioned the hypothetical team that pretends to be broken, but is selected by the first alliance and magically is functioning by finals. Even now, there are incentives to engage in less-than-honest behavior. Luckily, very few teams seem to do this.

Despite past selections (which have been described to me as "chaotic"), I believe that most teams would play honorably under that system as they do now. I know not everyone agrees that this "no picking the top eight" rule would be the way to go about increasing competitiveness, and that not everyone believes that regionals should be more competitive. Just offering my opinion on a good idea that often appears to be discarded rather hastily.

Ekcrbe

16-04-2012, 19:56

Picking 1-8, 1-8 gives not only the best teams an advantage, but it almost completely limits the "niche strategies" that some newer or smaller teams utilize effectively (i.e. a balancing/defensive specialist like 4294) by making the main strategy extremely dominant. Since teams that can carry the potentially poor random alliances in qualifications are usually offensive, those types of teams tend to seed higher and are more desirable for the 1st round of selections. A team that excels at one particular aspect of the game may not do well in qualifications, but could play a very valuable role with the right alliance during eliminations (as 4294 did at Kettering, being the last pick of the Alliance Selections). I think this is a prime example of how FIRST gets the point across that you don't have to be good at everything, but you have to find one job and perfect it.

BJC

16-04-2012, 20:00

The #1 alliance already wins 70% of the time. I don't think they really need any more help. I say save 1-8 1-8 for IRI where the playing field is so high every alliance is stacked with good teams.

Bryan

Andrew Lawrence

16-04-2012, 20:05

Something one of my team members thought of: Keep the 1-8, 8-1 rule (that keeps it interesting), but make it so that alliance captains can't pick each other.

1 can't pick 2, etc.

That means matches will be the first seed vs. the 8th seed, instead of the 1st and 2nd seed against the 8th seed, most likely going on to win the regional. It would then require teams to build the best alliance of not-top-8-robots.

Thoughts on this method?

EDIT: Nevermind, I didn't see the post above.

BJC

16-04-2012, 20:07

LeelandS

16-04-2012, 20:17

Let me just share a quick story:

At the 2011 Rah Cha Cha Ruckus (Off Season event in Rochester, New York), a new rule was implemented this year to make things more interesting: Teams in the top 4 could not pick each other. Well, that was a great idea. Except there were 5 really strong teams at the event. All the strong teams seeded in the top 5, as expected. 1559 seeded first, and picked 610, who seeded 5th. 1507, 48 and 1126 seeded 2 - 4, respectively. In the elimination rounds, The #1 Alliance faced off against the #3 and #4 alliance. 48 and 1126 did the best they could to build strong alliances, and they certainly did, 1126 having 1518 and 191 backing them, and 48 having 188 and 379 alongside them. However, the two alliances were just no match for the two very strong teams in 610 and 1559, along with 578.

I'm not saying this could happen for all events. It probably wouldn't happen for all events. However, by closing the top 8 seeds from being picked, you could be severely crippling the competition. This, of course, depends on the pool of teams, but it is something to consider if you're proposing preventing the top seeds from picking each other. If a powerhouse team has bad luck and seeds out of the top 8, the #1 seed gets a top 8 pick, while the others are left 'sitting ducks', so to speak.

Andrew Schreiber

16-04-2012, 20:22

I've heard this argument a lot for not being able to pick from the floor, and to me, it has always had a few flaws.

First, FRC really stresses GP. Lowering your rank purposefully in this system would definitively not be GP, at least in my opinion.

Of course, just because something is not seen by some as GP does not mean other teams will not attempt it. So, yes, having a rule about not picking within the top eight would tempt teams to lower their rank purposefully.

However, even now there are situations where teams can try to "game the system" in order to get on a more competitive alliance. For example, many have mentioned the hypothetical team that pretends to be broken, but is selected by the first alliance and magically is functioning by finals. Even now, there are incentives to engage in less-than-honest behavior. Luckily, very few teams seem to do this.

Despite past selections (which have been described to me as "chaotic"), I believe that most teams would play honorably under that system as they do now. I know not everyone agrees that this "no picking the top eight" rule would be the way to go about increasing competitiveness, and that not everyone believes that regionals should be more competitive. Just offering my opinion on a good idea that often appears to be discarded rather hastily.

Yup... just what we need, MORE excuses for people to yell about teams being "unfair" or "ungp".

Also, yay for punishing teams for performing well... Yup, let's limit who they pick to teams that did worse than them via some artificial means just so it is fair. At this point let's just forgo qualification matches and randomly assign 24 3 team alliances. Least then it would be fair right?

Disclaimer, I hate the serpentine draft, it hurts the 3rd best robot at shallow events. I haven't found anything better yet though.

klutzygirl16

16-04-2012, 20:25

my problem with the 1-8, 8-1 really only occurs during the smaller regionals. about 45 or less. At the second regional went to the team who seeded first's alliance one. They had 1 really amaizing robot, 1 really good robot, and one robot who placed 40 out of 42 and only won one of their games. I know that seeding doesnt always indicate ability but this was the second time we saw them at a regional and what i saw, they totally earned the place they got. So im kinda rambling but what i mean is that through this system, teams that dont deserve to win could be carried through the finals just because they are one of the only teams left. Now im not sure how much i like the other system but i do think its slightly fairer but at the same time not so much

johnr

16-04-2012, 20:38

Top 3 teams after seeding get ticket to champs.
8-1,1-8, no picking within top eight.
Winners get ticket too. If winner is one of top 3 seeders then ticket goes to next in seeding. Not enough tickets and just thinking out loud. I really dislike picking with-in top eight.

Grim Tuesday

16-04-2012, 20:50

You would think this is another one of those topics beaten to death around here (role of mentors anyone?), but I haven't seen a good thread on this for a long long time. That's surprising, because every time I watch a livestream, the people in the chat constantly complain about the serpentine draft.

To be honest, I quite like it. Let's examine the prior actions of FIRST and their goals, as well as a few other things that support serpentine besides the competitive aspect.

First, a couple things must be understood about Serpentine Draft. As Bob Steele said above, the goal of it is to average the quality of each alliance (1+2+24 and 8+9+10 both equal 27, or an average power of 9). Of course, this isn't 100% true. If you take a look at some events, in many cases, you will (http://www2.usfirst.org/2012comp/Events/OC/rankings.html) see (http://www2.usfirst.org/2012comp/Events/MA/rankings.html) a defined (http://www2.usfirst.org/2012comp/Events/DC/rankings.html) tiering (http://www2.usfirst.org/2012comp/Events/ROC/rankings.html) of the ranks. To take Fingerlakes as an example because I attended, the first seed there, 1507 was 8 QS higher than the second. At others, we see tiers of the top two or three teams being 4-6 QS higher than the rest of the top 8 cohort. Below that you see a tier of the 'upper middle class', which in my opinion has grown heavily this year. Below that you see teams that are clearly not going to be in elims.

The effect this has on the serpentine is that based on how each regionals tiering happens defines how the draft plays out. In an event with highly dominant team (Fingerlakes), the first seeded alliance will have a heavy advantage. In a very deep field (IRI, MSC, CMP), where the 8th can still be drawing from the tier directly below it, they have the huge advantage of getting two selections in a row. This was shown at Queen City where the 8th picked a triple balance alliance and won the regional with it. The point must me made, though, that the affects serpentine method changes based on regional and there is no one size fits all analysis of it. However, in general, the goal is to level the playing field, give all teams a chance, and make the eliminations more suspenseful.

The question is, are these the goals that FIRST intends? I would argue that they do. Consider this: You spend thousands of dollars to register. Thousands more to transport a team, feed the team, board the team. If there was literally no chance of winning unless you were in the top 5%, very many people would lose hope, lose fun, and fail to be inspired. There's already enough of that with the Canadian teams and 1114/2056 dominance, but that's a completely different can of worms that I don't want to take a position on.

By leveling the playing field, the serpentine draft makes eliminations more exciting. That's what packs stadiums. That's what gets FIRST noticed. The GDC has gone out of their way in previous years to make games that are good for crowds. To ruin it by ending the rankings after qualifications would be a major setback in the changing culture to celebrate STEM arena.

Looking at what FIRST has done in the past, the goal of a regional is clearly not to send the best three teams to Championships. There are six slots per event: Two go to the best two robots. One goes to a good robot. Three go to outstanding team acheivments (RAS, EI and Chairmans). Without even counting open registration, that's 60% of the teams per regional are not going based on robot performance.

To anyone who says that the draft should be 1-8,1-8, you are essentially ending it after qualifications. There isn't anything intrinsically wrong with that, to be honest. The eliminations are fun to watch, no doubt. But I think that District systems are solving this issue. By allowing the top 5 teams at MAR to go beyond those who already qualified, they solve the issue. Teams that don't win but still have outstanding robots (1218) still get to go. You still have fun an exciting elimination matches. And the other deserving teams (RAS, Chairmans, EI) still get to go.

Just to stir up the discussion (and I don't like this idea myself): What if the top 4 teams were randomized for order of pick? The same with the next 4.

CalTran

16-04-2012, 21:03

Just to stir up the discussion (and I don't like this idea myself): What if the top 4 teams were randomized for order of pick?

Not that I endorse the idea either, but boy would that shake up the show. Randomizing the top 4 robots? Potentially this still creates the x+1 alliance, but it would also give other robots yet another chance at toppling the top.

At some regionals, it was shown that just being in the top 4 doesn't always mean an automatic bid to champs. Look at Oregon or Queen City. The 8th alliance beat out the #1s all over the place, and I'm sure there's other regionals where the #1 got upset by a lower alliance.

Going off of that idea, it'd be interesting if instead, it was 1-8, random pick order or random assigned.

Alan Anderson

16-04-2012, 21:37

At a "shallow" regional, the serpentine draft is the worst way to choose alliances.

Except, of course, for every other way.

JABot67

16-04-2012, 21:38

I see absolutely nothing wrong with the 1-8, 8-1 draft order. It favors the number 1 seed enough that teams want to be there, but at the same time gives the lower seeded alliances enough chance to win.

Everyone says they want the "best" robots at a competition to win. I don't at all agree. If we want the best robots to win, why don't we just have the judges watch all the qualification matches and then determine which robots are the "best"? Oh right, we don't do that because that would be stupid. It would be like a science fair or robotics exhibition. I want the best alliance with the best strategy to win. If the robot/team that everyone agrees is the "best" isn't on the winning alliance, too bad. There's always next year. There's no such thing as "should have won".

kstl99

16-04-2012, 23:01

DampRobot

16-04-2012, 23:31

I always hated the fact that #1 can pick #2. At Boston this year, Miss Daisy and The Pink Team were clearly a few notches above the rest so when they ended up on the same alliance the regional was virtually over. Then I realized that if they could not have picked eachother (and if they hadn't qualified elsewhere) one of those teams would not have qualified for champs.

This. I feel that #1 picking #2 almost always essentially eliminates all competition in eliminations. I know that ever alliance "has a chance," but against the two best teams at the regional, the chances are slim. This is one of the reasons I am in favor of disallowing the top 8 to pick each other.

Here's the pickle about most alliance selection proposals: either the top two teams chose each other, and there is essentially no chance of anyone else winning, or the top two teams can't chose each other, and one strong team doesn't qualify for championships. The "compromise" option is to split up top teams, but allow top seeded teams to automatically qualify for championships.

EricH

17-04-2012, 00:25

This. I feel that #1 picking #2 almost always essentially eliminates all competition in eliminations. I know that ever alliance "has a chance," but against the two best teams at the regional, the chances are slim. This is one of the reasons I am in favor of disallowing the top 8 to pick each other. Often... but not always. Often, especially this year, it works out that #1 gets beaten. Also see 177, 190, 987 in 2007. #8 alliance to World Champion.

Here's the pickle about most alliance selection proposals: either the top two teams chose each other, and there is essentially no chance of anyone else winning, or the top two teams can't chose each other, and one strong team doesn't qualify for championships. If the top two teams can't choose each other, how do you enforce it? This was tried back in 1999 or 2000, I'm not sure which. There were allegations of teams deliberately throwing matches to drop into the pickable area. There is no way to stop that, unless you like being thought police or placing rules that would make a politician wonder how crazy you were. If one powerhouse is first with a weak schedule coming up, and another is second, I'd probably figure on the other throwing a few matches. (This happened in 2010 at the Championship, with a 6v0 to advance seeding. Whether I agree with their strategy there is irrelevant--they played it to advance their position in standings.) How do you prevent that happening? You can't.

Let me put it this way: By seeding #1, the #1 seed has earned the right to pick whoever they want. By artificially restricting that pick list, you deny them a reward for seeding #1. Now who wants to seed #1? Continuing that line of thought, #2 has earned the right to pick whoever they want, or accept a #1 invitation. Clear down to #8. Clear to whoever ends up in the #8 spot. Any team can decline, too--that is their decision, and their right. There is the risk that they do not play if they decline, and that is their decision to make.

If I'm #1, and DampRobot comes up to me and says "Because I don't like you beating everyone, you can't pick the top 6 robots at the event because they're in the top 8", I'm not going to be happy. At offseasons that have this sort of rule, everyone knows going in that that's the rule, it's an offseason, we're here just to have fun. But when it's a berth at the World Championship potentially on the line, every team in the eliminations wants the best alliance they can be on. This is a competition, folks! (That doesn't mean that the real mission of FIRST should be ignored--but you've got to remember that this is the FIRST Robotics Competition.)

lemiant

17-04-2012, 00:45

I see everyone here worrying about the top two slots, but what about the third robot? 1-8,8-1 means that while building the 22nd best robot at the regional leaves your result up to luck, your odds are still much better than the 8th best robot. It seems very unfair that the 10-18 teams are screwed for champs spots even compared to the less deserving group of 19-24 ranked teams.

EricH

17-04-2012, 01:18

It seems very unfair that the 10-18 teams are screwed for champs spots even compared to the less deserving group of 19-24 ranked teams.
OK. Stop. By saying that the 19-24 ranked teams are "less deserving", and the 10-18 teams are "screwed for champs spots", you are making multiple assumptions. I'm not even gonna touch the "unfair" part of that statement directly--I think it'll be dealt with as I go through this.

First: You are assuming that the rankings mean anything about the quality of the robots. Any assumption you have along those lines is not true due to the ranking system. It may be valid at a particular regional. It may even be valid at most regionals. But it is not valid across the board.

Second: Why is a robot ranked lower than another robot any less deserving? Team 4. Los Angeles Regional, 2006 and 2007. Picked out of the bottom of the field both times. They have two blue banners from that, and I'll tell you for a fact, they earned both of them. Any claim that they were "carried" is without merit--they were one really good defender and pushed at least their weight around the field.

Third: Now I'm addressing the "screwed" part. Why do you think we play the game? If you want to go there, Einstein 2010 was a waste of time; 1114 and 469 won. (For those keeping track at home, 67, 177, and 294 have the blue banners for Einstein 2010.) Three years before, 177, 190, and 987 should have just laid down--they'd have never made it out of the divisional semis. Again, each has a blue banner from Einstein 2007. To carry this into professional sports, the Yankees and the Patriots should just get the titles each year. (See: 2007 and 2012 for the Patriots in the Super Bowl.)

If we didn't play the game, you'd be right. But we play the game, we play to win, and we play strategy.

Fourth: You mean "picked teams" not "ranked teams". There is a difference. An 11th ranked team is not necessarily an 11th picked team. In fact, they might be the 8th picking team, and picking the 32nd ranked and 15th ranked teams in that order. (Making up numbers here... but it's not out of the question.)

Enough ranting out of me on that. I have a challenge for anybody complaining about the serpentine draft:

Come up with another system that works.
You need to reward teams for seeding first somehow (otherwise, why bother?), you need to make it so it won't take forever to get alliances, and you need to have it reliably come up with exciting matches all through the finals, preferably with a lot of upsets. Oh, and you need to have it so that teams won't throw matches to be picked by their preferred teams, or pre-make alliances and decline out of all others. (Both of which were determined to be issues in the first two years of alliances.) Go!

DampRobot

17-04-2012, 01:19

If the top two teams can't choose each other, how do you enforce it? This was tried back in 1999 or 2000, I'm not sure which. There were allegations of teams deliberately throwing matches to drop into the pickable area. There is no way to stop that, unless you like being thought police or placing rules that would make a politician wonder how crazy you were. If 1114 is first with a weak schedule coming up, and 2056 is second, I'd probably figure on 2056 throwing a few matches. (If it was 217, I'd be even more certain--see their move to create a 6v0 in 2010. Whether I agree with their strategy there is irrelevant--they played it to advance their position in standings.) How do you prevent that happening? You can't.

Let me put it this way: By seeding #1, the #1 seed has earned the right to pick whoever they want. By artificially restricting that pick list, you deny them a reward for seeding #1. Now who wants to seed #1? Continuing that line of thought, #2 has earned the right to pick whoever they want, or accept a #1 invitation. Clear down to #8. Clear to whoever ends up in the #8 spot. Any team can decline, too--that is their decision, and their right. There is the risk that they do not play if they decline, and that is their decision to make.

If I'm #1, and DampRobot comes up to me and says "Because I don't like you beating everyone, you can't pick the top 6 robots at the event because they're in the top 8", I'm not going to be happy. At offseasons that have this sort of rule, everyone knows going in that that's the rule, it's an offseason, we're here just to have fun. But when it's a berth at the World Championship potentially on the line, every team in the eliminations wants the best alliance they can be on. This is a competition, folks! (That doesn't mean that the real mission of FIRST should be ignored--but you've got to remember that this is the FIRST Robotics Competition.)

In FRC, as in all sports, there is always an option to cheat. Theoretically, you could say you finished your robot during build season, and just forge the signature on the bag and tag form. Teams could take parts off to get inspected, get declared underweight, and just add the parts back on. Budgets could be doctored to allow over-budget teams to appear under-budget. It's not impossible to cheat. There are just rules and systems in place which keep the vast majority of incidents from happening. But at some point, it is the team's decision if they want to obey the rules or not.

Under my proposal, of course it would be possible to cheat, and of course, it would be hard to catch the cheaters. I'm mainly envisioning a G26 type rule that would essentially say that purposefully placing out of the top 8 is "not in the spirit of FRC and disallowed." The purpose of the rule would not be to punish teams that attempt to place out of the top 8 strategically. It would instead clarify the intention of the GDC, and allow the team's decision do depend on the team's integrity.

To answer your question about the incentive to be #1, seeds 1-3 could be automatically offered spots at district or world championships, in addition to being able to chose from any of the 42 other teams first. There would still be an incentive to do well. Top teams would still get their well earned spot in St. Louis, and eliminations would be more competitive. I'm simply trying to propose a system that both allows dominant teams to go to championships, and creates more exciting and competitive elimination rounds.

Andrew Lawrence

17-04-2012, 01:37

In FRC, as in all sports, there is always an option to cheat. Theoretically, you could say you finished your robot during build season, and just forge the signature on the bag and tag form. Teams could take parts off to get inspected, get declared underweight, and just add the parts back on. Budgets could be doctored to allow over-budget teams to appear under-budget. It's not impossible to cheat. There are just rules and systems in place which keep the vast majority of incidents from happening. But at some point, it is the team's decision if they want to obey the rules or not.

Under my proposal, of course it would be possible to cheat, and of course, it would be hard to catch the cheaters. I'm mainly envisioning a G26 type rule that would essentially say that purposefully placing out of the top 8 is "not in the spirit of FRC and disallowed." The purpose of the rule would not be to punish teams that attempt to place out of the top 8 strategically. It would instead clarify the intention of the GDC, and allow the team's decision do depend on the team's integrity.

To answer your question about the incentive to be #1, seeds 1-3 could be automatically offered spots at district or world championships, in addition to being able to chose from any of the 42 other teams first. There would still be an incentive to do well. Top teams would still get their well earned spot in St. Louis, and eliminations would be more competitive. I'm simply trying to propose a system that both allows dominant teams to go to championships, and creates more exciting and competitive elimination rounds.

Alright buddy, I'm going to stop you there. Is this possible? Yes, it's possible, but it's also possible for me to win Einstein while in a coma. People wouldn't do that in FIRST.

I know you know that, and I know you weren't implying that, based on your use of the word "theoretically", I get that, but you are comparing two totally different "cheatings". One, where teams do things against the FIRST rules, such as the theoretical work on robot after season. The other, when you look at it, really isn't cheating. It's playing to the game. In order to rank this year, you needed to balance, so what did teams do? They balanced. If you need to have a close game, you let your opponents score a little. If you needed a landslide victory, you'd do your best every match.

If your rules (which I agree with mostly, BTW), are set in, a team could try and play to get a lower rank, but if I remember correctly, purposely throwing a match is un-GP, since it effects your alliance partners, and I remember someone recently got penalized for that (don't quote me on this). But then you have to look at it: Is a team throwing a game, or are they honestly having problems? For an example, 254, 2011 World Champion team, at CVR. They were having some problems, and ended up not being in the top 8. Heck, they were even behind us most of the time, which has never happened in the history of our competitions together. Could they theoretically be throwing matches with the intent of being left behind so they can be chosen by the top alliance of 1717 and 330? Yes, it's possible. Were they? I doubt it.

If a rule like this were in place, I'm positive the refs will be making some mistakes that will change the outcome of the event.

So while the rules that both you and I have previously thought of would be beneficial, they make the game just that more difficult, and can cause some unfair rulings.

Looking back, over my suggestions, and everyone else's, I think the current serpentine draft is fine the way it is. All other methods mentioned bring in new problems or difficulties that make everything harder than it needs to be.

Zebra_Fact_Man

17-04-2012, 04:19

All of this has more than likely been said multiple times, but 1-8 8-1 is really the best overall formula for draft selection. Does it have flaws? Sure it does!

In particular, the team I mentor had an unusual year mechanically where we had an excellent design, but just couldn't seem to work out the bugs. At our first district, we were lucky enough to get picked by the #6 alliance in the third round. We were also lucky enough to upset the #3 and #2 alliances on out way to the finals. When we got there though, we had 1023 and 469 waiting for us and there was no way we were winning. We pretty much knew that before the finals even started. But we got to have our fun on the way there anyways, and as a developing team, that's really all we wanted; to give the kids hope of future success so they keep trying.

I guess the point of the story is that the current system allows for underdogs to be competitive if they use good strategy while still allowing the dominate teams to be successful. Adding any restrictions to draft selections would be ridiculous and a hassle.

DampRobot

17-04-2012, 10:08

I know you know that, and I know you weren't implying that, based on your use of the word "theoretically", I get that, but you are comparing two totally different "cheatings". One, where teams do things against the FIRST rules, such as the theoretical work on robot after season. The other, when you look at it, really isn't cheating. It's playing to the game.

I think you might have misunderstood me. I didn't intend to say that under the current system, picking in the top 8 is "cheating" or "unfair." I was just saying that in my hypothetical situation, the possibility of cheating would exist, just as it does today. In both my theoretical world and the current system, at some point (but different points) teams have to be trusted to play the game with integrity.

To add to EricH's question, what do we really want for a system in eliminations? Do we want the "best" robots to win the regional?
The 1,1,1,2,2,2,3,3,3... system provides this. Do we want eliminations to be more competitive, to be everyone's game? The "no picks from the top 8" rule or some sort of randomized selection would provide this. Or do we want to provide inexperienced or under preforming teams with a chance to attend championships? The current system seems to allow for that. Finally, is it possible to formulate a compromise that retains the benefits and few of the drawbacks of proposed systems?

Andrew Lawrence

17-04-2012, 10:15

Andrew Schreiber

17-04-2012, 10:31

I think you might have misunderstood me. I didn't intend to say that under the current system, picking in the top 8 is "cheating" or "unfair." I was just saying that in my hypothetical situation, the possibility of cheating would exist, just as it does today. In both my theoretical world and the current system, at some point (but different points) teams have to be trusted to play the game with integrity.

To add to EricH's question, what do we really want for a system in eliminations? Do we want the "best" robots to win the regional?
The 1,1,1,2,2,2,3,3,3... system provides this. Do we want eliminations to be more competitive, to be everyone's game? The "no picks from the top 8" rule or some sort of randomized selection would provide this. Or do we want to provide inexperienced or under preforming teams with a chance to attend championships? The current system seems to allow for that. Finally, is it possible to formulate a compromise that retains the benefits and few of the drawbacks of proposed systems?

The goals for eliminations, in my mind, need to be:

Maximize Excitement of Matches
Reward Teams for Seeding High
Minimize Blowout Matches

The reasons for this are simply that anything other than this makes it less fun for students. Ultimately the reason we are doing a competition is because it is fun for students and gets them excited.

Chexposito

17-04-2012, 10:40

The Cow Town ThrowDown (http://cttd-robotics.com/pages/home) did serpentine outside top 8 last year. Here's the link. (http://cttd-robotics.com/pages/competition_information/detailed_competition_information#I) It worked out pretty well from what I remember. They also did IRI rule's.

EricH

17-04-2012, 11:33

Finally, is it possible to formulate a compromise that retains the benefits and few of the drawbacks of proposed systems?Which is exactly why I threw down that gauntlet with a challenge to come up with something better. I don't know if it's possible either.

I think with the serpentine, we've got the same problem as democracy: It's the worst system, except for all the others.

jyh947

17-04-2012, 11:38

What if there were only 7 alliances? The number 1 alliance would receive a bye due to their qualification match preformance.

Benjdragon

17-04-2012, 11:54

At the St. Louis regional we (1985) ended up ranked sixth because our opponents couldn't or wouldn't balance on the coop bridge for a number of our matches. One of the teams were posting offensive power ratings and by the end of qualifiers we were actually rated higher offensively than the number 1 seeded team. They picked us for thier first pick because they knew this also, and we went on to win the region with a rookie team as a thrid member.

At the world championship last year, on Galileo, some of the best teams did not make the top 8 seeds. They were quickly picked by the top 8, but like us, they lost matches due to being placed with teams that couldn't perform well in the qualifiers.

The ranking systems and final alliance selection processes are not perfect, but if the goal is only to have the 'Best' teams have a chance at winning, then I think you would have a lot of teams get discouraged and drop out.

The goal of FIRST is to promote science, engeneering and math in a fun way. To have an underdog have a chance of making it all the way helps encourage new teams and teams that don't have as good mentors and designs to still participate and learn.

S.P.A.M.er 17

17-04-2012, 17:08

...Since teams that can carry the potentially poor random alliances in qualifications are usually offensive, those types of teams tend to seed higher and are more desirable for the 1st round of selections. A team that excels at one particular aspect of the game may not do well in qualifications, but could play a very valuable role with the right alliance during eliminations .....

So im kinda rambling but what i mean is that through this system, teams that dont deserve to win could be carried through the finals just because they are one of the only teams left.

I agree with the style of drafting that plays out now. All of the alliances are balanced out. The 1st alliance going up against a number 5 alliance with Exploding Bacon(1902), Mars(1523), and Voltage(386) is a scary thought.

To Klutz, our second pick was not undeserving of what they won. 40 out of 42, winning one match, does not mean anything in the ranking system that FIRST has set up. Their system is simply the easiest way for teams to be ranked. If competing with SPAM for the last four years has taught me anything, it is how important scouting is. While Team 3627 may have only won a single match, they balanced 10/11 times. Their drive team is incredible, and most importantly in this year's game, they can balance. This is something that FIRST can miss.

Thanks to the serpentine draft, deserving teams are able to compete against other deserving teams for a chance to go to St. Louis. Without scouting though, you very well might see teams just picking the highest ranked team that is left. Now there is something to think about, Who is more deserving? A team that performs better when isolated out thanks to scouting data? Or a team with whom the FRC qualifier selection gods favor?

It is hard to make a competition in which everyone wins, but this style does better in guaranteeing that everyone has a chance (all bets are off when Daisy picks Pink, but that is besides the point). I personally like the district style, where the top number of teams get to advance from the state championship to the FIRST championship.

Tknee

19-04-2012, 05:41

karomata

19-04-2012, 08:07

At the Ruckus offseason event, the Alliance selections were modified:
1,2, and 3 couldn't pick anyone in the top 4, though the selection turns went right back to #1 after #8's first pick.

JohnBoucher

19-04-2012, 08:31

If some team wants to allow me to rank higher than them by not playing up to their potential, I can only say THANK YOU!

Taylor

19-04-2012, 08:50

How many ways can a team get to CMP?
Win a regional (3 teams per regional)
RCA (1 team per regional)
REI (1 team per regional)
Previous year champion (3 teams)
Previous year EI (1 team)
CCA (15 teams)
Original, sustaining team (7 teams)
RAS (1 team per regional)
Any veteran team that did not compete in previous year CMP (1,000 ish teams)
Any veteran team that did compete in previous year CMP, and the event is not full (1,000 ish teams)
FiM and MAR points system (TBD teams)

Of all the ways to punch a ticket to St. Louis in April, only three of them have anything to do with winning this year. For non-rookie teams, that's less than one percent. I think FIRST has made it clear that competition is fun, winning should be celebrated, but for cryin' out loud, it's not about the robots.
Draft 1-8, 1-8, or draft serpentine, or draw names out of a hat. It doesn't really matter. IMO the primary goal of FIRST competitions is to put on a show that is exciting, inspiring, entertaining, and accessible. Of the models put forth so far, 1-8 8-1 theoretically gives the most even, exciting, stimulating elimination rounds. For three-team alliances, it's historically the best way to do it (within the realm of FRC regional events)

bduddy

19-04-2012, 12:11

Here's my idea. Reorder the top eight seeds as follows: starting with the first seed and ending with the seventh seed, allow the teams to pick which slot to pick from. Proceed with serpentine draft as currently

I imagine most of the time, teams will want to retain the ranking they earned from the qualification matches. However, there will be the occasional time that a team feels it may benefit more from an earlier pick of a 2nd robot and choose to captain one of the alliances in the lower half of the bracket.I agree with this - the teams that earned higher seeds should have the right to choose whatever positions they want. Teams shouldn't be penalized for having higher seeds, and if they prefer a higher-numbered alliance over a lower number, they shouldn't have to tank to get one.

How would adding in new alliance captains work, though?