Picking from top 8 seeds

[Bohalin]

Hello All,

Just wanted to start a discussion and find out how other teams feel about being able to pick teams from the top 8 seed. ex. seed 1 picks seed 2, seed 2 picks seed 3, so on and so forth.

Now I know there exceptions and teams don't always do this.

In my own opinion, I feel that teams should only be able to pick from teams outside the top 8. I feel there is often super alliances of seed 1 and 2 at comps that I've attended. Again, there are always some exceptions where this isn't the case.

if they take away the option of picking top 8 seeds, you are creating a slightly more even playing field. You are also giving teams that usually don't get picked a chance to play in the finals.

I look forward to seeing your opinions! :)

thanks!

[Alpha Beta]

Leads to teams sandbagging to be 9th or lower instead of fighting to be 8th so they can be picked by #1.

Although... The wildcard spot now puts an emphasis on being captain over 1st pick.

[BigJ]

if they take away the option of picking top 8 seeds, you are creating a slightly more even playing field. You are also giving teams that usually don't get picked a chance to play in the finals.

I don't want to get into the implications of purposely manipulating match results to become the "best team outside of top 8".

With regards to the 2nd sentence, one would assume the "best 24 teams" still play, therefore it would be the same teams either way, just in different configurations.

[nikeairmancurry]

Hello All,

Just wanted to start a discussion and find out how other teams feel about being able to pick teams from the top 8 seed. ex. seed 1 picks seed 2, seed 2 picks seed 3, so on and so forth.

Now I know there exceptions and teams don't always do this.

In my own opinion, I feel that teams should only be able to pick from teams outside the top 8. I feel there is often super alliances of seed 1 and 2 at comps that I've attended. Again, there are always some exceptions where this isn't the case.

if they take away the option of picking top 8 seeds, you are creating a slightly more even playing field. You are also giving teams that usually don't get picked a chance to play in the finals.

I look forward to seeing your opinions! :)

thanks!

You worked hard to rank first, why not have the chance to pick whomever you want to play with.

[apalrd]

OCCRA does this (with the top 6 teams).

There was a case this past year where a team in the top 6 (I think they were 4th) attempted to throw their last qualification match to drop below 6th (they would have if they lost the match). They were playing against the team in 2nd. The team in 2nd knew the team in 4th would attempt to score for them, which would put them low enough to be picked by #1 (which #2 did not want to happen), so the 2nd ranked team then scored for the 4th ranked teams alliance in that match (so both teams were scoring for the opposing alliance). It was one of the strangest matches (and most confused audience and spectators/fans) I have ever seen in OCCRA. The fans of both teams were shouting that they were scoring for the wrong alliance, and everyone was confused (but it made sense to ~10 total people).

The resulting chaos and playing the seeding system would be worse than the 2010 week 1 6v0.

[2789_B_Garcia]

[QUOTE=Alpha Beta;1259218]Leads to teams sandbagging to be 9th or lower instead of fighting to be 8th so they can be picked by #1.
[QUOTE]

I agree...it would lead to gaming the system...and besides...1 doesn't always pick two, and as I've seen in this year's game, if two top teams have similar robots and one of them picks the other, it doesn't always work out in their favor. The dynamics of an elims match are different than those of qual matches, and teams with better strategies and coordination have been able to pull off some exciting upsets against these "super alliances."

I, for one, think it's exciting to watch these super alliances. Their combined strategies give me ideas for how to approach future games and future robot design.

[Chris is me]

Hello All,

Just wanted to start a discussion and find out how other teams feel about being able to pick teams from the top 8 seed. ex. seed 1 picks seed 2, seed 2 picks seed 3, so on and so forth.

Now I know there exceptions and teams don't always do this.

In my own opinion, I feel that teams should only be able to pick from teams outside the top 8. I feel there is often super alliances of seed 1 and 2 at comps that I've attended. Again, there are always some exceptions where this isn't the case.

The issue that stops this argument before it even gets off the ground is that the top 8 is rarely an accurate representation of the best 8 robots at the event. Thus, you'd be favoring the good teams with worse luck or schedules by giving them the privilege of being selected by the #1 seed.

This also creates a strange incentive for many teams to throw matches on Saturday morning. If you can't pick anyone in the top 8, and a team really wants to be picked by a top seed, they have an extremely strong incentive to just not try, or even actively sabotage, their last few matches.

if they take away the option of picking top 8 seeds, you are creating a slightly more even playing field. You are also giving teams that usually don't get picked a chance to play in the finals.

Actually, this wouldn't help at all. If everyone picked perfectly, then the only possible way worse teams would join the elimination rounds would be if they were an alliance captain. If teams were ranked in perfect order, then only the 24 best teams would play elims regardless of whether or not inter top 8 picking were allowed. I can write this all out if you'd like.

[CalTran]

if they take away the option of picking top 8 seeds, you are creating a slightly more even playing field. You are also giving teams that usually don't get picked a chance to play in the finals.

I'm not entirely sure how this levels the playing field, and I'm really not sure how it gives a team that's not usually picked a chance for elimination play. 24 (Though could be as high as 32) teams play in eliminations. 24 teams still play even if there's picking in the top 8. As stated before, the 24 teams might be on different alliances, but it's still going to be the same 24 teams. The 24 teams that each alliance thinks gives them the best shot at getting a bid to Champs.

This'll sound harsh, but why should teams that usually don't get selected for eliminations play get a better shot at being picked? Unfortunately, they're usually not picked for a reason - they're simply not seen as an asset to an alliance.

[rick.oliver]

The prize for prevailing in the Elimination Rounds is an invitation to the Championship event. The top seeded teams after the Qualification rounds have, by and large, earned the right to form an alliance which affords them what they believe to be the greatest opportunity to win their matches and claim that prize.

(I wrote "by and large" because random pairings and other circumstances don't always even out over ten or so Qualification Matches.)

The process has already been somewhat diluted by the introduction a few years ago of the serpentine draft system. This can give lower seeded teams an advantage under certain circumstances.

Prohibiting the top eight seeded teams from selecting among themselves will in no way increase the number of teams who have the opportunity to compete in the Elimination Rounds. It may make for closer Elimination Round matches. While it may afford two other teams the opportunity to compete in the Final Elimination matches, it may also deny a team with a more competitive robot a spot in the Championship event.

[peirvine]

I feel that if FIRST were to implement that rule, it would lead to some drastic strategy changes. First, it would lead to people "sandbagging" to be in 9th, so intentionally losing their Saturday matches in the hopes that they can be picked by the number 1 seed alliance. This, in my opinion, is against what FIRST is about. I feel like intentionally losing a match is not Gracious or Professional, as you are dragging down your other two partners with you.

Having the first seed pick the second doesn't always guarantee their victory. In the Minnesota North Star Regional, the number one picked the number two and the third seed alliance ended up beating them in the finals.

It is all about the luck of the draw. Anything can happen and the good teams will prevail. Plus this method leads to exciting alliance selections, such as the 2013 Northern Lights regional, where the first seed was rejected by everyone 2-6, thus making a very interesting...

[Racer26]

I haven't seen anybody in this thread mention it yet, but FIRST actually tried this one year, and as everyone has said, it just lead to meta-gaming by top teams, purposefully sandbagging to seed outside the top 8.

Interesting that this suggestion has come up at the same time as a thread about playing to win matches vs playing to win an event.

[Bohalin]

These are all good points I didn't even think about! thanks!

[tr6scott]

I think to make a more competitive product, we take a something from the NHL, and also from engineering. . .

My first engineering prof. at Wayne State described engineering as, "doing for a nickel what any fool can do for a dollar."

So here is a thought... we add budgets to the selection criteria. We have team budgets of $10k less, $10-20k, $20-$30k, and $40k and above has the luxury tax.

So the first seed, can pick from anyone, but there would be a max budget constraint for an alliance. Say you have to build the alliance and stay under a $75k total alliance budget. So your a powerhouse team, you can pick another powerhouse team, but you may have to play 2 on 3?

Or maybe a sliding scale for points based on budgets... If an alliance of 3 rookies has a combined budget of $30k, and your alliance budget is more than double, the rookies points are worth 2 times in scoring.

Getting all of this worked out boggles the mind, but isn't that engineering?
(Although, it may not inspire anyone but the bean counters.) :)

[Racer26]

Except that there is limited correlation between team budget and team performance. Never mind the correlation != causation argument.

There are low budget teams (like my own 4343, who competed at two regionals and built their robot for around $11,000 total this year) who perform fantastically (we captained the #2 alliance all the way to the finals at GTREast).

Conversely, there are many teams with very high budgets that don't perform well at all.

Yes, there are teams with big budgets that have great success on field. 1114, 2056, 148, 118 and more come quickly to mind. However, their budget is not the reason for their success. The reason for their success is hard work.

[Lil' Lavery]

I haven't seen anybody in this thread mention it yet, but FIRST actually tried this one year, and as everyone has said, it just lead to meta-gaming by top teams, purposefully sandbagging to seed outside the top 8.

Interesting that this suggestion has come up at the same time as a thread about playing to win matches vs playing to win an event.

...sort of

What FIRST actually tried was automatic pairings among the top 8 teams, which was an even greater incentive to trying to manipulate the ranks in a game that was already very different from any other.

In 2001, the game was played by 4 robots working together attempting to score as many points as possible as quickly as possible (you got score multipliers for stopping a match early). Elimination alliances were comprised of 5 teams, with 4 on the field for any one match. Each round of the tournament consisted of two alliances alternating matches, each trying to score more points than the other alliance did in the match before.

Due to the size of alliances relative to the size of most events, there were only four elimination alliances formed at regionals. The #1 seed was automatically paired with the #5 seed, the #2 with #6, #3 with #7, and #4 with #8. Afterwards, alliance selection occurred with the #1/4 alliance picking first, and so forth (no "serpentine" element until 2006).

[Taylor]

The playing field is evened all it needs to be by the serpentine draft.

[Akash Rastogi]

The playing field is evened all it needs to be by the serpentine draft.

QFT

[Nuttyman54]

The incentive to intentionally take losses has already been mentioned several times, but I want to highlight something that has only been touched on once so far:

Whoever ranks as #1 seed has earned the right to invite whomever they want. Nobody should be punished by the fact that they played well and in doing so become unselectable. The #1 seed should not be punished for their performance by having to play with the 9th best robot at the event, thereby hurting their chances at taking home a title. Yes, the alliances may be more "even", but "even" is not the goal. The higher ranked teams are supposed have the opportunity to build the best alliance. That is, after all, the point of the qualification matches and rankings.

This of course assumes that the overall rankings are accurate, and that the #1 seed is in fact the best team, and the #2 seed is 2nd best and so on. If this is not the case, it's still not any better:

(Note: when I say "best" team I mean the team which would be the best partner. There is no good way to define "best" otherwise, due to strategic choices.)

1) The #1 seed is not the best team at the event but is better than the 10th best team at the event, and the best robot is in the top 8 (eg #2). The best team is hurt by not being able to accept an offer by the #1 seed, and has to settle for the 10th best robot, thereby hurting their chances at victory.

2) The #1 seed is not the best team at the event and is worse than the 10th best team at the event, and the best robot is in the top 8 (eg #2). There is no effect by not being able to accept an offer by the #1 seed, because they would have declined anyways. The best team at the event would be unable to accept any other offers if they were lower than #2, but without in-picking, they wouldn't be getting any other offers anyways.

3) The #1 seed is not the best team at the event, but the best team is outside the top 8. They would have to accept the offer anyways to play in the elimination tournament, so this has practically no effect. With present day rules they could still decline and hope they move into the top 8 through in-picking, whereas forcing teams to pick outside the top 8 forces them to accept the offer. In practice, this very rarely happens.

In an hypothetical world where all teams build robots to do the same thing and the only gradation is how well they do it, and assuming the rankings are perfect, the #1 seed would chose the #2 seed, The #3 seed (moved up to #2 spot) would chose the #4 seed and so on. It was on this assumption that the previously alluded to "auto-pairing" rules were used in 2001, the infamous 4v0 game.

A brief history: the 2001 game had no traditional opponents. Rather, it was a competition to see which alliance could achieve the highest score. At the higher levels of play, the perfect score of 710 points was totally doable, and so eliminations were more of a test of who didn't screw up. There were 5 teams on an alliance. Regionals had 4 alliances in the elimination round, championship divisions had 2 (divisions were therefore effectively CMP quarterfinals).

The first round of selection was automated. At the regional level, the #1 seed was assigned the #5 seed, the #2 seed given the #6 seed, and so on. At championships it was #1 with #3 and #2 with #4. After that teams got to chose. This was incredibly flawed, not only because the rankings are not necessarily accurate, but also because strategically, a variety of robot designs were necessary to achieve the highest score (unless you were one of the magical do-it-all robots like 71 that year, who fittingly won the championship because they were not only good, but it also basically didn't matter who their partners were). The result was not only sandbagging, but also trying to get a specific seeding position. The first partners were not necessarily strategically compatible, so luck played a huge role.

Case in point: 71 was pretty much the best robot around. They could do it all, and really only needed partners to drive across the field and get their 10pts for making it to the end zone. Therefore, teams would want to either by in a position to auto-pair with them, wherever they seeded, or be low enough to not be part of the auto-pairing.

Auto-pairing is obviously an extreme example, but ultimately the integrity of the competition is based on the fact that the rankings allow teams to form the best alliance they can. Even if we assume everyone in FIRST is perfect and would never throw a match for strategic reasons, it's still a dubious way to declare a winner. FIRST has already made an attempt at making alliances more "even" by implementing the serpentine draft format in 2006, and I think that's as far as it should go.

[Jonathan Norris]

Yes, there are teams with big budgets that have great success on field. 1114, 2056, 148, 118 and more come quickly to mind. However, their budget is not the reason for their success. The reason for their success is hard work.

Budge has VERY little to do with those team's success, I bet if you gave that same group of Students and Mentors 5K to build a robot they would be 80-90% as competitive.

Take for example the team I helped start 2809, this year they ended up only having 2 weeks to build their robot this year, Kit drive train, lots of wood, and a very simple shooter. They were the 6th pick at FLR, and 3rd pick at GTR East, says alot about the quality of the students and mentors running the team this year.

[jwfoss]

I don't want to get into the implications of purposely manipulating match results to become the "best team outside of top 8".

With regards to the 2nd sentence, one would assume the "best 24 teams" still play, therefore it would be the same teams either way, just in different configurations.

I would argue that it is not really the "best 24 teams" but the robots that create the best 8 alliances.
The best robots don't always make the best alliance partners.

[MrForbes]

At both of the regionals we played this year, the #1 seed picked a team ranked pretty far down, well out of the top 8, with their first pick (987 picks 254, 1726 picks 842). In both cases they got the best available robot, and won the regional.

[Joe Ross]

...sort of

What FIRST actually tried was automatic pairings among the top 8 teams, which was an even greater incentive to trying to manipulate the ranks in a game that was already very different from any other.

Think back farther. 1999 (the first year of alliances) did not allow picking within the top 8.

P6. The eight qualified teams will select their allies from the remaining (non-
qualified) teams. Selection of allies will occur starting with the highest
ranked team and proceed down the rank order until eight alliances have been
formed.

[Racer26]

Man... watching some of these old match videos from 2004+ earlier really shows how much the program has evolved. I was a student back in 2003 and 2004, and I don't remember it seeming so... different.

I think the system more or less as its been since the dawn of 3v3 is pretty good, especially when you compare to where we came from.

[Craig Roys]

Budget is not really a fair way as I would guess most teams spend about the same amount on their robot and they're all definitely under the cap of whatever it is this year - $4000? The amount we spend on our robot is a very small portion of our team budget - maybe 5-10%. The rest goes into things like registration, travel, lodging, food, uniforms, offseason events, demos, community outreach, etc.

Also, I don't believe a team should be penalized for working hard to obtain a #1 seed; or even a 1-8 for that matter. You should be able to choose the robot that you believe gives you the best chance to win. Even the so-called super alliances are beatable if a lower seed is able to pick wisely a play a sound strategy. I'm not saying it would be easy, but it is possible...if it was a foregone conclusion, we wouldn't even bother playing the matches.

[PayneTrain]

It would be unique if they wanted to do something like what I have done in fantasy football league drafts: everyone is given a set of "points" to bid on the players as they come up. Maybe this year a team could take their auto score as the points they would use to bid on teams.

However, something like that would be best saved for an offseason event as an added quirk in the system. The serpentine draft makes for very potent middle of the pack alliances almost all of the time anyway. At events I have attended the past few years, the 3, 4, and 5 seeded alliances are probably the best of all of them, and in some cases, have won the events.

[jdh042397]

Hello All,

Just wanted to start a discussion and find out how other teams feel about being able to pick teams from the top 8 seed. ex. seed 1 picks seed 2, seed 2 picks seed 3, so on and so forth.

Now I know there exceptions and teams don't always do this.

In my own opinion, I feel that teams should only be able to pick from teams outside the top 8. I feel there is often super alliances of seed 1 and 2 at comps that I've attended. Again, there are always some exceptions where this isn't the case.

if they take away the option of picking top 8 seeds, you are creating a slightly more even playing field. You are also giving teams that usually don't get picked a chance to play in the finals.

I look forward to seeing your opinions! :)

thanks!

if your number one you should choose

[nicholsjj]

It might just be the area, but I have to look at the Cow Town Throwdown offseason event held by team 1730. Alliances are not allowed to pick inside the top 8. This has lead to exciting elimination finals as the final field is much more balanced. Let's take last year for instance. Team 16, team 1986, and team 3528 were by far the best 3 robots at the event.(This is not meant to slight any team that did attend, but it just shows how amazing those three robots were.) If either of those two teams had partnered up then everyone at Lee Summit would have know which alliance would win. Because teams could not pick inside the top 8 the eliminations became very close and exciting for all of the alliances. All three of the "powerhouse" robots made the semis and I feel that the teams had a more positive experience. I think it's a good idea in the offseason, but I understand why it would hurt teams at a FIRST Regional where the teams are trying to qualify for championships.

[Abhishek R]

I agree that the serpentine draft already evens out the competition enough. And if you're first seed, usually it was well earned and deserves the reward - the choice of partner who they think will give them the best chance to win the regional.

[Chris Hibner]

What I would find interesting is keeping the serpentine draft, but allowing any higher seed to pass on it's pick.

For example: the #1 seed decides to pass its pick. the #2 seed then can pick first, which it chooses to do. The #1 seed would then pick next, but it chooses to pass again. The #3 seed then gets to pick, which it does. The #1 seed gets another option to pick or pass at the 3rd position. (BTW, the #2 seed can pass on having the first pick as well, and on down the line.)

"Why would anyone want to pass on the first pick?", you ask? Let's say you're at the Championships (or MSC or any competition with a deep field), and you can pick from 1114, 2056, 1986, and 469. In this case, your #1 pick might be better than #4 on your list, but by how much? Would you rather pick first, or trade down to get a better second round pick? It would make for some interesting strategy.

[Grim Tuesday]

What I would find interesting is keeping the serpentine draft, but allowing any higher seed to pass on it's pick.

For example: the #1 seed decides to pass its pick. the #2 seed then can pick first, which it chooses to do. The #1 seed would then pick next, but it chooses to pass again. The #3 seed then gets to pick, which it does. The #1 seed gets another option to pick or pass at the 3rd position. (BTW, the #2 seed can pass on having the first pick as well, and on down the line.)

"Why would anyone want to pass on the first pick?", you ask? Let's say you're at the Championships (or MSC or any competition with a deep field), and you can pick from 1114, 2056, 1986, and 469. In this case, your #1 pick might be better than #4 on your list, but by how much? Would you rather pick first, or trade down to get a better second round pick? It would make for some interesting strategy.

That is a very, very interesting idea. I'm all for increasing the level of strategy in alliance selections. To actually implement this, I say gave an extra 15 minutes to the alliance selection procedure: first you let the top 8 seeds choose when they would be picking in the draft then give a 10 minute break to meet with their scouts then back to regular picking.

Doing it in 'real time' would make it very difficult to pick with good strategy, I think. Getting a chance to know the standings and 're-calibrate' the picklist would make it perfectly practical.

[nobrakes8]

While it may afford two other teams the opportunity to compete in the Final Elimination matches, it may also deny a team with a more competitive robot a spot in the Championship event.

This comment is an awesome perspective on the issue I didn't consider so props!

I'm still not a fan of super alliances after week 1 and if the teams involved have previously qualified for the championship (in regards to getting qualified for the championship and during the championship I'm all about survival of the fittest). I say this because if the two or three best teams compete against each other that brings in strategy into play instead of domination --and I feel like if you want to be the best you need to beat the best. Plus your alliance picks on those 1,2 and 3 seeds matter for strategy and all sorts of reasons not just to have them ride a great team's coattails.

[hiyou102]

I think that the 2nd pick is still a good way of making weaker alliances more effective. We still want a system that rewards teams who do well rather than putting a barrier that makes it so less good teams qualify for worlds.

[themccannman]

Curie division last year, 254 was having robot malfunctions through most of quals which ended up leaving them ranked in the bottom 30 teams. During their last couple qual matches they got their robot working again and started shooting the lights out scoring nearly 100 points each match but not going for cooperition points which did 2 things:

it allowed them to shoot for the entire match instead of balancing to demonstrate their offensive ability, and it caused teams they played against to lose coopertition points which increased the likely hood of 341 staying the #1 seed (which was the team they wanted to be picked by).

If you change the ranking system around this is much more likely to happen, if a team wants to be picked by the #1 seed they will throw matches so that they don't make the top 8 and can get picked. This system would discourage teams from playing well to rank highly and would not solve the problem of "super alliances" as the good robots who aren't #1 seed would purposefully rank out of the top 8 to get picked by the #1 seed.

The current system encourages teams to play their best throughout qualification matches except in some very rare cases (e.g. in the previous case if 254 had a match against 341 and wanted to keep 341 as the #1 seed). The other important fact to note is that the seeding is typically not accurate whatsoever at telling you which teams are the best teams, if it did everyone would ditch their scouting systems and just make picks based on seeding order.

[Tom Line]

Curie division last year, 254 was having robot malfunctions through most of quals which ended up leaving them ranked in the bottom 30 teams. During their last couple qual matches they got their robot working again and started shooting the lights out scoring nearly 100 points each match but not going for cooperition points which did 2 things:

it allowed them to shoot for the entire match instead of balancing to demonstrate their offensive ability, and it caused teams they played against to lose coopertition points which increased the likely hood of 341 staying the #1 seed (which was the team they wanted to be picked by).


Hmmm. That can be a fairly touchy accusation, because by implication it is suggested that they were costing their own alliance partners points as well. Do you have something concrete that would back that up?

I think a lot of the discussion here simply highlights why everyone should move to a district system if possible. Basing your attendence at worlds on one competition would be incredibly stressful. Instead, a system like Michigan's where a solid team just has to play well and not win a single event rewards consistent performers.

[Gregor]

Hmmm. That can be a fairly touchy accusation, because by implication it is suggested that they were costing their own alliance partners points as well. Do you have something concrete that would back that up?

I think a lot of the discussion here simply highlights why everyone should move to a district system if possible. Basing your attendence at worlds on one competition would be incredibly stressful. Instead, a system like Michigan's where a solid team just has to play well and not win a single event rewards consistent performers.

If it were true, their alliance partners were free to go to the coop bridge. No harm no foul.

[Nuttyman54]

Hmmm. That can be a fairly touchy accusation, because by implication it is suggested that they were costing their own alliance partners points as well. Do you have something concrete that would back that up?

They weren't actively denying anyone coop points or preventing their partners from attempting it. They just weren't doing the coop bridge themselves. It was a simple case of doing what was in their best interest (show off their robots capabilities), under the condition that they knew they could not rank high enough to be picking.

[Pat Fairbank]

Curie division last year, 254 was having robot malfunctions through most of quals which ended up leaving them ranked in the bottom 30 teams. During their last couple qual matches they got their robot working again and started shooting the lights out scoring nearly 100 points each match but not going for cooperition points which did 2 things:

it allowed them to shoot for the entire match instead of balancing to demonstrate their offensive ability, and it caused teams they played against to lose coopertition points which increased the likely hood of 341 staying the #1 seed (which was the team they wanted to be picked by).

True, and the main reason why the ranking system was so fundamentally flawed (from a game theory perspective) last year. If it came to a point where you were guaranteed not to seed, you had absolutely zero incentive to participate in co-op balancing (unless trying to show off your balancing ability to potential alliance captains). It was a much better use of 254's time to practice and demonstrate our ball scoring ability, so that's what we did (while not discouraging our partners from co-op balancing if they so chose).

[ErvinI]

IIRC, the top 8 ranked teams at Buckeye each captained their own alliances. There were a lot of high caliber shooters (706, 2252, 2016, 2834 etc.) that had various problems in qualifications, yet were fully functional by noon on Saturday. They ended up becoming picks instead of captains.

Just shows how rankings don't truly reflect the capabilities of a team, even in a year without coop points.

[themccannman]

True, and the main reason why the ranking system was so fundamentally flawed (from a game theory perspective) last year. If it came to a point where you were guaranteed not to seed, you had absolutely zero incentive to participate in co-op balancing (unless trying to show off your balancing ability to potential alliance captains). It was a much better use of 254's time to practice and demonstrate our ball scoring ability, so that's what we did (while not discouraging our partners from co-op balancing if they so chose).

I absolutely agree that the ranking system and coopertition points were very flawed last year which is why I hope they never bring it back since it just causes problems exactly like the one you guys encountered. You guys made the correct strategic choice and I would have made the same, if I was not in a position to make top 8 then coopertition points would be my lowest priority. I'm merely pointing out how much more flawed a different elimination round system could be.

[themccannman]

Hmmm. That can be a fairly touchy accusation, because by implication it is suggested that they were costing their own alliance partners points as well. Do you have something concrete that would back that up?

I never said that they were denying anyone coop points, however, by not actively going for a bridge balance you have reduced the probability that coop points would be scored that match. If your robot is the best one on your alliance at balancing you are not actively denying a team coop points but you are reducing the probability that coop points are scored. You're also forcing your teammates to not score a double balance if they want coop points which makes them choose if they want to score coop points and put themselves at risk of not winning the match, or if they want to score points to win the match but not get coop points. Logically speaking they weren't directly causing anyone to lose coop points, in fact I would have made the same decision they did, however, from a statistical standpoint they were costing both alliances coop points.

[Carl C]

I would like to offer an antedote here. Basically, there can be more than one "super alliance." For example, at the 2013 North Cololina Regional, the top ten ranked teams each selected each other, which created a cluser of five "super alliances." Though it worked for some, two of these alliances were out the first round, including the second seed. My point? The first pick is not everything and I believe that captains should be able to pick the best eligible robot.

[Donut]

I think a lot of the discussion here simply highlights why everyone should move to a district system if possible. Basing your attendence at worlds on one competition would be incredibly stressful. Instead, a system like Michigan's where a solid team just has to play well and not win a single event rewards consistent performers.

I like the district system a lot because it gives incentive to try to win every match rather than game the rankings by sandbagging, and it makes it even easier to qualify for the Championship without winning an event than the new wildcard rules do (though the wildcard rules are definitely a good stop gap until everyone is in districts). As a plus when everyone has moved to the District system the robot quality at Championships will see an uptick as no teams will qualify by being carried to an event win by a "super alliance" (I'm aware this doesn't happen at all or even most events, but it does happen).

On the note of budgets, I don't see it being practical (or a good idea) for 2 reasons:
1) Everyone already has the same budget limitation for the robot ($4000).
2) If you look at general team budgets you unfairly penalize teams that have to travel far due to their location (being in Iowa we have a budget of $15000 just to attend 1 regional with no practice bot or anything else fancy).

[DampRobot]

Hmmm. That can be a fairly touchy accusation, because by implication it is suggested that they were costing their own alliance partners points as well. Do you have something concrete that would back that up?

I can vouch for themccannman. Something like this did go on according to a reputable friend. I believe the motivation was to maximize their OPR in order to improve their stats.

[Cory]

I can vouch for themccannman. Something like this did go on according to a reputable friend. I believe the motivation was to maximize their OPR in order to improve their stats.

We don't care about OPR.

We absolutely told all our partners (and opponents) we would not co-op balance at a certain point at champs when it was clear we had no chance at seeding, as Pat said in this thread. Our operator became our base driver two weeks before the event and the operator at Champs was brought onto the drive team at the same time. We needed our drivers to gain confidence in the robot and get as much experience at scoring from the key as possible. Spending the extra 45s scoring made a huge difference in their performance as the event progressed.

There was no nefarious intent to deny our partners or opponents co-op points though. We simply needed to maximize our own performance and our attractiveness to potential alliance captains, which we successfully did.

[DampRobot]

There was no nefarious intent to deny our partners or opponents co-op points though. We simply needed to maximize our own performance and our attractiveness to potential alliance captains, which we successfully did.

Fair enough; perhaps I was mistaken. Seems like a very reasonable and successful strategy. Just saying that at times, strategic decisions are made to appeal to scouts, like you chose to do. Certainly nothing wrong with it.

To return to the original thread topic... A lot of threads like this tend to pop up around this time in the season. It all seems to stem from the belief that elims are essentially a formality at the vast majority of regionals, because the two best teams are basically assured their blue banner (barring any catastrophe). I've certainly had similar thoughts of my own in the past, and there's even a fair degree of truth of it. It's pretty telling that I was able to call the two winning teams of SVR with a large degree of certainty Friday night.

Would you rather have some one other than the best two teams win the regional? This is what the proposal seems to achieve. As much as it sucks to be a team that feels like it has no chance of winning a regional, it would suck even more to be a team with one of the two best robots and not win the regional. While every team works hard just to put a robot on the field, top teams work harder to put the best robot on the field possible.

Lets not forget that upsets do happen. Davis was won by the fifth alliance, and the first alliance with the two most stacked robots at the regional in terms of OPR was eliminated in the quarterfinals! The current system does a pretty good job of getting the best teams to the finals while allowing upsets to happen. Like democracy... It's the worst system except for everything else.

[Akash Rastogi]

We don't care about OPR.

We absolutely told all our partners (and opponents) we would not co-op balance at a certain point at champs when it was clear we had no chance at seeding, as Pat said in this thread. Our operator became our base driver two weeks before the event and the operator at Champs was brought onto the drive team at the same time. We needed our drivers to gain confidence in the robot and get as much experience at scoring from the key as possible. Spending the extra 45s scoring made a huge difference in their performance as the event progressed.

There was no nefarious intent to deny our partners or opponents co-op points though. We simply needed to maximize our own performance and our attractiveness to potential alliance captains, which we successfully did.

Regardless of intent, I'm vouching for 254 yet again that all members of 254's alliance that match were well aware and agreed to not need co-op points. Nobody was asked to do something they did not want to. We also let the other alliance know well ahead of time there would be no co-op balancing due to our alliance's positions in the ranks.

[themccannman]

I just want to make it clear that I'm not pointing any fingers or making accusations, I simply brought up 254's situation from last year as an example of something that would be much more common with an alternative elimination system. In my opinion the current FRC seeding and ranking system is the best it can be. Picking from 1st seed down then back up from 8th is statistically the most fair way of allowing alliance selection based on seeding advantage.