2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions

[Chris Fultz]

Each year, we look at what official rules might need to be adjusted for IRI.

We have the benefit of seeing how the game is played, and we can adjust the level of difficulty (when needed) to match the level of play we see at IRI.

Gneral guidelines we use are that we won't make changes that are a major impact to designs, and we try to limit changes so that teams don't feel compelled to spend all of June and July working on their robot to meet some new challenge. We are also have to consider changes that impact FMS, automated systems, and referees.

As a note, we were already discussing the Tower Strength change to 10. We will see how that plays out at CHP.

[Eric Scheuing]

Change G28 so that robots can continue playing defense in the courtyard until the end of the match. They must leave robots on the batter alone, but before that robot gets to the batter, they're fair game.

[KosmicKhaos]

I think that I would remove the limitation on robot height while in your own courtyard. As it stands right now, defense as intended in the courtyard is effectively useless due to the multitude of teams with protected shots, and defense has all but entirely moved to the neutral zone.

Thematically, there's no reason why a castle's defenders would need leave the defended walls to sally out to meet the attacking force short of being sieged.

This gives teams the ability to play meaningful defense in their own courtyard, while providing another design challenge in being forced to be able to shoot at all 3 goals.


This could make the game more competitive in the way that you possibly eliminate shooting from the same spot every time. Agreed in the way that it could force teams to use more goals than just the center one.

[MechEng83]

As the season continues, Breaching seems to be less valued, as it happens relatively quickly with a competent alliance. Something that may add an additional level of difficulty would be to require all 5 defenses to be breached to get the rank point/extra points in teleop. I don't know if that messes up the FMS, but from a referee standpoint, it shouldn't be any more work.

[An Outlier]

Change the wording so that Robots shooting from the Outer Works are no longer protected.

This would help with the easy-to-capture towers problem, because defense could actually do something!

[Ben Martin]

I would make the sally port and drawbridge transparent. My preference would be to eliminate the portcullis and drawbridge completely, but that might be too drastic a rule change.

Some language to eliminate the transferring-balls-without-completely-crossing-a-defense penalties while still preventing the existence of 'defense-straddling bots' would be nice.

Some language to not penalize robots that inadvertently push a second boulder over a defense when crossing when the second boulder previously started in a defense would be nice.

I would also investigate incorporating a static or non-team-selected defense lineup to help with the space constraints (and matches would go very quickly without having to change all the defenses all the time), but I haven't done any analysis on the impact of this yet.

Add a ref in each human player station watching ball counts

[Hallry]

Get rid of audience defense selection.

[natejo99]

Get rid of audience defense selection.

I agree with this. There has to be some better way to go about selecting the defense in slot 3.

[adciv]

Change the wording so that Robots shooting from the Outer Works are no longer protected.

This would help with the easy-to-capture towers problem, because defense could actually do something!

To modify the rules to support this, I'd recommend this change:

ROBOTS are prohibited from launching BOULDERS unless they are in contact with the opponent’s
TOWER or carpet in the opponent’s COURTYARD, and not in contact with any other carpet.

ROBOTS are prohibited from launching BOULDERS unless they are fully contained in the opponent’s
TOWER or carpet in the opponent’s COURTYARD.

Essentially, this removes the "safe shooting zone" of the defenses, but does not eliminate safe passage across the defenses.

[Logan Byers]

Randomly select the "audience" selection, but still have the suspense/cheer for "X", now "Y".

Make driving over a second boulder like pinning, 5 second count, then get smacked with a penalty.

[efoote868]

As the season continues, Breaching seems to be less valued, as it happens relatively quickly with a competent alliance. Something that may add an additional level of difficulty would be to require all 5 defenses to be breached to get the rank point/extra points in teleop. I don't know if that messes up the FMS, but from a referee standpoint, it shouldn't be any more work.

The low bar can only be weakened once the other 4 defenses are damaged.

[CalTran]

Robots can break the midline during autonomous, but only for a new boulder zone. Put the boulders in their own 10" "zone" where you can interact with the entirety of the ball. Itll make for some interesting auto modes.

[Jon Stratis]

Breaching and captures shouldn't be automatic, as they are slowly turning into. Changing it to 10 boulders (or higher?) should help with captures... I would also, if possible, change the requirements for damaging a defense to 3 crossings instead of two.

[Edxu]

Remove the limitation on robots crossing Neutral Zone plane during autonomous. This encourages teams to develop more complicated autonomous programs that reflect the level of competition that should be at IRI.

Remove the height limitation of 4'6 in your own courtyard. This makes actual courtyard defense viable, and gives cheesecaking options.

If a boulder is in the way of a robot's defense crossing (eg in the low bar), don't penalize them for pushing it through. This eliminates those awkward situations where you have to outtake your ball and take the defense ball because of a weird case in the rules.

[Drakxii]

Let the alliance pick all of their defenses. No audience selection, no categories, and the low bar does not have to be in slot 1 (but has to be on the field).

[P.J.]

I would also, if possible, change the requirements for damaging a defense to 3 crossings instead of two.

I was so caught up in boulders/tower strength I didn't even think of this, but I really like it. It seems like it adds that extra amount of difficulty without being excessively hard or fundamentally changing gameplay.

The only issue I see is that I doubt it will be able to be changed in the scoring system (as there was no reason to build variable defense strength into the system) so that will add some difficulty in scoring. Potentially. I'm no expert.

And of course now this means that there's another crossing for teams to get mad about when refs "miss" it :p

[mr.roboto2826]

Allow boulders to be able to be shot/launched/moved out of your own courtyard into the neutral zone or opponents courtyard. Penalize any scored boulders however. This would open up some new defensive and offensive strategies to play stronghold.

[Lij2015]

Just remove the drawbridge entirely, but if that's too much I completely understand.

You should allow defenses to be crossed multiple times in auto and give you the same amount of pointd(I.e. first crossing 10, 2ND crossing 10) because at the moment defenses are effectively worthless at high levels of play as an effective elims alliance is breaching literally every match.

This would make auto a bit more interesting as now you have placed an interesting deal on the field of do you shoot and cross once or just cross twice? However it does have the chance to greatly overpower two ball autos, which to be honest are already doing a fine job at being pretty effective.

[JB987]

Allow teams to shoot from the neutral zone...

[CJ_Elliott]

Human players able to throw balls for a score in the last 20 seconds

[Chris is me]

Replace the drawbridge and sally port with clear polycarbonate.

I know this will cost money, but it's worth it. If a team I'm with ends up competing, I would honestly donate to a Fix The IRI Drawbridge Fund to help make this happen. The drawbridge is just such a crummy field object and it really ruins the flow of the game when it is out there. It would just make a subset of IRI matches worse to watch and play in.

I would get rid of the penalties for driving through a defense when there's a ball stuck in it. If this means teams bulldoze an extra ball or two over a defense than they otherwise would have, whatever, it's worth it. Not a huge deal.

I would not remove protected zones or anything like that. That's completely unfair to the hundreds of teams that designed outer works shots. I don't know why everyone is so bothered that they can't hit shooting teams this year - it didn't seem to bother anyone in 2012 or 2013...

To draw penalties in the secret passage, the robot drawing the penalty has to be also within the secret passage. I'm not sure if this is how the rules are currently written or not, but it's being called as "offensive robot in secret passage + any contact at all = penalty".

[Jim Schaddelee]

Change the wording so that Robots shooting from the Outer Works are no longer protected.

This would help with the easy-to-capture towers problem, because defense could actually do something!

I think the IRI is for the best of the best. I may be wrong but I think making the game easier to play defense seems like no improvement. Any mid level team with a decent drive system should be capable of this. If anything their should be a premium on skilled tasks, shooting long shots ,climbing and autonomous. I rather see more offense by adding more balls and get rid of ball hoarding.

[Dan Petrovic]

Get rid of audience defense selection.

FMS automatically generates the audience selection and there's no way around it. The easiest way to get rid of it would be to randomly select between the two.

If they really wanted to, they could develop a whole new system, ignoring the print-outs and field reset lights, but, as someone who is planning an off-season of their own, I don't think it's worth the effort.

The low bar can only be weakened once the other 4 defenses are damaged.

I like this idea. We might take it for Mayhem in Merrimack! :D

[efoote868]

FMS automatically generates the audience selection and there's no way around it. The easiest way to get rid of it would be to randomly select between the two.

If they really wanted to, they could develop a whole new system, ignoring the print-outs and field reset lights, but, as someone who is planning an off-season of their own, I don't think it's worth the effort.

Does the FMS know the difference between defenses placed on the field? If I put a rough terrain in place of a rock wall, would it scream at me?

[Nick Lawrence]

I'm not entirely sure how much of an 'arms race' this would cause, but I think it would be cool to see the wording of G13 to be changed to the following:

During AUTO, ROBOTS may not enter the volume above the AUTO LINE nearest to their COURTYARD.

Violation: FOUL. If contact is made with an opponent ROBOT completely beyond the AUTO LINE nearest to the offending ROBOT'S COURTYARD (either direct contact or transitive contact through a BOULDER), an additional FOUL is assessed and the opponent ROBOT is immediately awarded the CROSSING of the closest DEFENSE from the point
of contact.

Bolded sections are changes that I am proposing. The intent of this change would be to encourage teams who have been sitting on 2 ball autonomous modes all season to run them with less fear of drawing fouls, but I can see this possibly becoming an arms race of sorts for folks to spend time working on 2 ball autos. It also intends to make a situation where two robots attempting to collect the same boulder to be a no-call situation. Thoughts?

-Nick

[JesseK]

These changes are aimed to speed up the potential pace of the game to a level beyond WCMP's and DCMP's. Let's assume all IRI teams are at least capable of crossing at least 8 of the 9 defenses. Let's also assume teams are very capable of boulder scoring, either high or low.

Allow selection of both defenses from the same category. If done, also remove the 'tunnel' that the HP's have to throw a ball into in order to get a ball on the field. (Seriously, no where in literature or history did a catapult have to re-cross yonder mountain to get another rock...)

Allow the low bar to be placed anywhere. We need to keep those autonomous programmers on their toes (muahahaha).

I agree - get rid of the audience selection. Or implement a more scientific method for determining which one is chosen - something like decibel-seconds, for example.

Set tower strength to 8. Add 'fiery' boulder that, when scored high or low, gives the opponents a tech foul. There are only 2 fiery boulders on the field, and they both start behind the glass (1 per side). I can give a part number for the ball - it's bright orange, is the same size (verified w/ measurements) and is only slightly stiffer than the usual game piece. Sure, it needs 2 extra people to specifically watch the balls - but it's IRI, I'm sure there are people who would love field-side seats.

[plnyyanks]

Does the FMS know the difference between defenses placed on the field? If I put a rough terrain in place of a rock wall, would it scream at me?

Nope. FMS only know what's entered by the defense coordinator and the current audience selection. That's how it sets the outer works lights for the field resetters. It can not differentiate between the different defenses physically placed on the field.

However, if FMS is posting data (I haven't heard if this will be enabled for offseason builds, although it usually isn't), then the published defenses used in a match will be wrong.

[Billfred]

-Playoffs tower strength is set to the average number of boulders scored across all alliances in the IRI qualification rounds, minimum 10. I don't think any of us can predict how loony the play will be there, so let's just admit we don't know.
-No penalty for crossing the midline during autonomous, if the bumpers don't cross the far black line. (This should facilitate boulder-grabbing strategies without removing the overall protection intended.)
-Teams can get credit for more than one crossing in autonomous.
-Leave the drawbridge and sallyport alone. It's IRI, it's supposed to be hard. Bring a pole if you're that worried.
-Remove or greatly increase the height limit on poles, subject to some safety vetting (say, a get-through-the-doorway test and a pelted-with-boulders test). It's IRI, it's supposed to have something ridiculous on the field (and this might beat Suzy-Q).

[bdaroz]

FMS automatically generates the audience selection and there's no way around it. The easiest way to get rid of it would be to randomly select between the two.

You know I heard the TSA has a really expensive iPad app to pick left or right... Might help. :)

[JesseK]

-Remove or greatly increase the height limit on poles, subject to some safety vetting (say, a get-through-the-doorway test and a pelted-with-boulders test). It's IRI, it's supposed to have something ridiculous on the field (and this might beat Suzy-Q).

Interesting.

Though perhaps they could also ban all poles, suspend a camera above the field, then send the feed to 6 separate monitors at the 6 driver's stations?

[alicen]

Add 2 more "refs" to focus on the outerworks, and reverse the hinge side of the sally port. These two new refs would not need to call any fouls and would only need to know the wave off and what counts as a crossing.

As for actual adjustments to the game, I'll leave that up to everyone else :)

[Cash4587]

Leave all of the defenses in the same place for each round of matches so we can play more matches and make field reset easier. Don't change them until every team has played their first match, then until every team has played their second match, etc...

[SoccerTaco]

Change the wording so that Robots shooting from the Outer Works are no longer protected.



The protected zone around the outer works was not a loophole in the rules, but an obvious and almost certainly intentional aspect of the game. Yet, relatively few teams took advantage of it. I don't think teams should be penalized for having made good design choices to take advantage of the obvious protected zone.

[chandrew]

Add extra points for multi climbs/a triple climb bonus. Maybe make the rough terrain blocks a bit taller so that there's a reason to select it. Possibly add weight/take off the constant force springs on the portcullis?

[BrendanB]

Replace the 5th defense with another Low Bar to encourage more two ball autonomous routines.

Or allow teams to replace whatever defense gets put in position 5 with the Low Bar but don't only give it points for the first crossing as the "penalty" for putting it in.

[Matthew1998]

Return any ball that flies out of the field to the SPY. They can do what we they want with the ball, except score it.

[Anthony Galea]

If the goal is to increase scores, have 3 balls start touching the castle wall, but not in the secret passage, on each side placed by the alliance in that tower.

[CalTran]

Return any ball that flies out of the field to the SPY. They can do what we they want with the ball, except score it.

Does that include nailing a defending robot? :D

[Karibou]

Replace the drawbridge and sally port with clear polycarbonate.

I know this will cost money, but it's worth it. If a team I'm with ends up competing, I would honestly donate to a Fix The IRI Drawbridge Fund to help make this happen. The drawbridge is just such a crummy field object and it really ruins the flow of the game when it is out there. It would just make a subset of IRI matches worse to watch and play in.

I'd also donate to this fund. The drawbridge seems to be much harder than the sally port for many teams (since you can't just spin around/wiggle to break contact), but it's not getting much use because of how much of a hinderence it is to drivers. It's almost like there's only 8 defenses instead of 9 because of how little it's used. There's something to be said for tradeoffs, but I think it would still a challenging defense to cross even if the door was clear. The #damaged/#opportunities success rate in the quals at the DCMPs was low, which is partly due to the abysmally low denominator, but also because it's difficult.

[P.J.]

I'd also donate to this fund. The drawbridge seems to be much harder than the sally port for many teams (since you can't just spin around/wiggle to break contact), but it's not getting much use because of how much of a hinderence it is to drivers. It's almost like there's only 8 defenses instead of 9 because of how little it's used. There's something to be said for tradeoffs, but I think it would still a challenging defense to cross even if the door was clear. The #damaged/#opportunities success rate in the quals at the DCMPs was low, which is partly due to the abysmally low denominator, but also because it's difficult.

For those keeping score at home (because I love numbers) the Drawbridge was the least selected defense in Qualifications, being chosen 27.67% of the time. However the Portcullis (28.71%) and Rough Terrain (29.29%) weren't chosen with much more frequency.

In Playoffs, the Drawbridge was actually chosen with MORE frequency (28.30%) than either the Portcullis (28.17%) or Rough Terrain (20.87%)

Your mileage may vary based on region, week of competition, district vs regional vs DCMP, etc.

[Ben Martin]

At MAR CMP, according to TBA, the drawbridge went 0/34 in quals and 0/13 in playoffs. We are one of the teams guilty of putting the Drawbridge in 4, since in that spot it is worse for the opponent than for you in many cases.

Looking at NE, they had the drawbridge go 0/9 in quals and 0/17 in playoffs.

Unless you are one of the few with a very good dedicated drawbridge mechanism, at the highest levels, it's not worth your time versus scoring more boulders and just lowers everybody's scores.

[Karibou]

For those keeping score at home (because I love numbers) the Drawbridge was the least selected defense in Qualifications, being chosen 27.67% of the time. However the Portcullis (28.71%) and Rough Terrain (29.29%) weren't chosen with much more frequency.


I did see that too. For category A at DCMPs (which I'm using because IMO they'd be more similar in competitiveness to IRI than a regional), the portcullis and cheval seem to have similar success rates, so it makes sense to choose the one that doesn't impede vision at all. Looking at some week 6 districts and regionals, if the success rate isn't the same, the portcullis tends to have a slightly higher success rate.

For category D, I'm guessing that's because the rough terrain is incredibly easy compared to the rock wall; it gives your opponents a fast way in and out of the courtyard. I'm surprised the rough terrain wasn't used less. I'd actually like to see the rough terrain modified somehow to increase its difficulty for IRI and put it more on the same level as the rock wall, but that might be changing the game too much.

[P.J.]

For category D, I'm guessing that's because the rough terrain is incredibly easy compared to the rock wall; it gives your opponents a fast way in and out of the courtyard. I'm surprised the rough terrain wasn't used less. I'd actually like to see the rough terrain modified somehow to increase its difficulty for IRI and put it more on the same level as the rock wall, but that might be changing the game too much.

I totally agree with your assessment. Additionally, Rough Terrain use dropped to only about 24% in both Weeks 6 and 7 (and even lower to 21 and 19% in Playoffs), and I wouldn't be surprised if it drops even lower at Champs.

The question becomes what could be done to increase the difficulty of the Rough Terrain without changing the game too much?

[BotDesigner]

Human players able to throw balls for a score in the last 20 seconds

+1:D

[Matthew1998]

Does that include nailing a defending robot? :D

The main breaker shouldn't be that hard of a target.

[pandamonium]

Add a spy ball that can be placed in the courtyard in auto mode.
add an additional ranking point in quals matches that exceed 150-175 points. (there needs to be an intensive to keep playing. In the event of a blow out you don't want to see an alliance all on the tower with 20 seconds left to play.)

Stronghold is a good game so to make it better you just need more stronghold
Increasing match length for eliminations 30 seconds
Breaches need all 5 defenses
Increase tower strength

[JesseK]

Return any ball that flies out of the field to the SPY. They can do what we they want with the ball, except score it.

Interesting idea that would add a fun element to an otherwise uninteresting position. I would allow them to score it, but not peg another robot.

[Eric Scheuing]

Interesting idea that would add a fun element to an otherwise uninteresting position. I would allow them to score it, but not peg another robot.

Allow them to only score, but only low goals.

Any ball returned to the field by the human player may only contact robots on that human player's alliance before making contact with another robot.

[JesseK]

Allow them to only score, but only low goals.

Any ball returned to the field by the human player may only contact robots on that human player's alliance before making contact with another robot.

Sequence of events for a ball is tough on the refs, tbh. Scoring is automated, so it's easy.

[pmangels17]

I'd like to see what happens when all the herding/trapping/driving-on-top-of/shooting-outside-the-opposing-courtyard rules were lifted. It seems like it could make the refs jobs a lot easier, there would be a lot more high-flying game pieces, and teams could get more creative with strategy (both defensively and offensively). This might have to correlate with more tower strength, but that isn't really a problem.

Defensive robots wouldn't only be robots that can drive well, but now defensive robots that can remove game pieces from their courtyard would be valued, as would robots that can feed their attacking shooters in the opposing courtyard.

Subsequently, when teams don't have to cycle every time they needed a gamepiece to score (because they could be fed them by partners shooting them into the courtyard), we would probably see less defense crossings in a match, and maybe force teams to make a strategic decision to either feed boulders and score more, or cycle and get more crossings, ideally making it more work to breach the Outer Works without heavily modifying the breaching rules.

[Ryan_Todd]

Picking on Billfred here, just because he has some of the best ideas I've read so far...

-Playoffs tower strength is set to the average number of boulders scored across all alliances in the IRI qualification rounds, minimum 10. I don't think any of us can predict how loony the play will be there, so let's just admit we don't know.
Yes yes yes. Playoff tower reinforcement is not only thematically appropriate, but also makes a lot of sense for adapting to the level of play we expect to see at IRI!
(Follow-up question: does the FMS already allow this, and/or can we trick it somehow?)
.


-No penalty for crossing the midline during autonomous, if the bumpers don't cross the far black line. (This should facilitate boulder-grabbing strategies without removing the overall protection intended.)
I like the idea of giving teams a bit more fudge room around the central boulders during auton, but the exact wording of the revised G13 determines whether or not this strategy accomplishes that without starting an RC war like last year. Perhaps the positions of some/all of the central boulders might be modified instead, so that a certain number of them are unambiguously allocated to each alliance?
.


-Teams can get credit for more than one crossing in autonomous.
I would definitely support this if we find a way to give each defense 3 health instead of 2, or if we can limit the awarding of breaches to after all 5 defenses have been damaged, or we find some other way to jack up the difficulty of breaching the defenses. Otherwise, I'm not so sure that we want to make an easy thing even easier.
.


-Leave the drawbridge and sallyport alone. It's IRI, it's supposed to be hard. Bring a pole if you're that worried.
-Remove or greatly increase the height limit on poles, subject to some safety vetting (say, a get-through-the-doorway test and a pelted-with-boulders test). It's IRI, it's supposed to have something ridiculous on the field (and this might beat Suzy-Q).
Certainly! There are plenty of ways to solve the visibility problem, and teams playing at the level of IRI should already have a good solution for this. It was an intended part of the game challenge, and I'd say it still should be!

[Hitchhiker 42]

Add extra points for multi climbs/a triple climb bonus. Maybe make the rough terrain blocks a bit taller so that there's a reason to select it. Possibly add weight/take off the constant force springs on the portcullis?

Without the springs, the portcullus becomes incredibly hard to lift. Like I can barely lift it hard. I know because we tried going through one on the practice field at NEDCMP and snapped a part.

[Karibou]

Without the springs, the portcullus becomes incredibly hard to lift. Like I can barely lift it hard. I know because we tried going through one on the practice field at NEDCMP and snapped a part.
No surprises there, that steel frame is heavy. You could remove the springs and change the frame to aluminum, but removing the springs would completely change the dynamic of the defense.

[Billfred]

I like the idea of giving teams a bit more fudge room around the central boulders during auton, but the exact wording of the revised G13 determines whether or not this strategy accomplishes that without starting an RC war like last year. Perhaps the positions of some/all of the central boulders might be modified instead, so that a certain number of them are unambiguously allocated to each alliance?

I personally think the IRI refs can get away with a "we know when you're going for a boulder" policy where FIRST can't necessarily, just because it's IRI and it's only one event.

Unless many more restrictions are removed, nobody is getting more than two balls per robot. You could protect the three nearest to each low bar not unlike IRI did with recycling containers last year, but I think that affects strategy too much. (If they can auto something besides low bar, you'd put it in position 4/5 and bet on them not having an autonomous for that.)

[IKE]

I really like this game, and don't think it needs any real changes.

A couple possible improvements:

1. Have an extra ref monitoring the back-field and corral to ensure that teams get boulders back in ply in time or are penalized.

2. Find a better securing clip/method for ensure defenses do not pop out at inopportune times.

3. Discuss whether or not it makes sense to have "standard defenses" and thus eliminate the swapping of the defenses each match. I am not sure they are really adding much depth to the game at this point. You could do a vote for which ones team want out on the field, and them something else to determine the order/placement, and leave them put. If agreed to, then 2 would be much easier to resolve.

[Clinton Bolinger]

- Allow launching balls from your court yard, but not from the neutral zone.
- Remove Category A & C Defenses. Putting the following defenses out for every match:
-- Low Bar
-- Rockwall
-- Rough Terrain
-- Moat
-- Ramparts
- Bolt the defenses down instead of using the "pins"
- Breach is 5/5 Defenses

Most of my reasons for removing the defense selection is to increase field reset times which will allow for more matches. At IRI the defenses will be breached over 90% of the time (MSC has a breach of 96%). Also, the strategic advantage of selecting your defenses will be much less.

Stronghold is a very strategic game but most people are delusional when thinking the large portion of the strategy comes from picking the defenses.

-Clinton

[Richard Wallace]

I generally like Stronghold the way it is; however --

1) please put the drawbridge in the parking lot and leave it there. Make Sally's door transparent.

2) tower strength should be at least 10. Let's see how that works out at CMP before raising it further.

3) second Issac's call for better attention to G34 by the referees. Ball hoarding has been a thing in some matches,

4) figure out when to Red Card for tipping, and when clean contact = play on. Put Andy Baker in charge of that.

[Hitchhiker 42]

- Allow launching balls from your court yard, but not from the neutral zone.
- Remove Category A & C Defenses. Putting the following defenses out for every match:
-- Low Bar
-- Rockwall
-- Rough Terrain
-- Moat
-- Ramparts
- Bolt the defenses down instead of using the "pins"
- Breach is 5/5 Defenses

Most of my reasons for removing the defense selection is to increase field reset times which will allow for more matches. At IRI the defenses will be breached over 90% of the time (MSC has a breach of 96%). Also, the strategic advantage of selecting your defenses will be much less.

Stronghold is a very strategic game but most people are delusional when thinking the large portion of the strategy comes from picking the defenses.

-Clinton

I disagree with completely taking out category A. Although for IRI it won't provide much of an additional challenge, making the breach even easier is the wrong direction to go. If we're going for constant defenses, stick the Cheval in, and be done with it. Don't completely use the easiest defenses.

[Travis Hoffman]

I would make the sally port and drawbridge transparent.

Some language to eliminate the transferring-balls-without-completely-crossing-a-defense penalties while still preventing the existence of 'defense-straddling bots' would be nice.

Some language to not penalize robots that inadvertently push a second boulder over a defense when crossing when the second boulder previously started in a defense would be nice.

Add a ref in each human player station watching ball counts

+1, especially to the transparent doors. Strip away thematic elements for the sake of improved referee visibility and reduced chance of uncredited crossings.

[Billfred]

+1, especially to the transparent doors. Strip away thematic elements for the sake of improved referee visibility and reduced chance of uncredited crossings.

The referee angle is one I might indulge. Mostly-clear Sallyport, OEM Drawbridge? (If you pick the latter even now, you are very clearly making a statement.)

[Travis Hoffman]

The referee angle is one I might indulge. Mostly-clear Sallyport, OEM Drawbridge? (If you pick the latter even now, you are very clearly making a statement.)

We have a camera pole - visibility for the drive team isn't a concern. Visibility for referees is. Sally port has precedence over drawbridge.

We're already used to doing 3 crossings for full damage credit ;) , so increasing to 3 crossings per damage wouldn't be a big deal. I could get behind that change as well.

[IndySam]

Addition of a crossing guard, a scorer who's job is just to count crossings to relive the refs for more important things. I'll be the first to volunteer.

[Hitchhiker 42]

We have a camera pole - visibility for the drive team isn't a concern. Visibility for referees is. Sally port has precedence over drawbridge.

We're already used to doing 3 crossings for full damage credit ;) , so increasing to 3 crossings per damage wouldn't be a big deal. I could get behind that change as well.

Be careful... you might have to do 4 now! :]

[Travis Hoffman]

Be careful... you might have to do 4 now! :]

I know it's said in jest, but I would not expect that at this event. The official eyeballs should be plentiful. Especially if Scott is a crossing guard - does he get to wear the vest and carry a stop sign? :)

[CalTran]

Addition of a crossing guard, a scorer who's job is just to count crossings to relive the refs for more important things. I'll be the first to volunteer.

Provided they can get the extra volunteers, I vote for this too.

[carpedav000]

-Allow teams to shoot from the neutral zone during teleop
-Eliminate the drawbridge
-3 crosses to damage a defense (If not, only make breaching worth bonus points, not a ranking point.)
-Autonomuos low goals worth 10 points
-Accidental tipping no longer a red card (damage inside the frame perimiter still a red card)

[Captain_Kirch]

These may have been said before, but I'll toss em out there anyway. I'm not saying put them all in, they're just possible changes.

Auto
Remove the up to 1 scored crossing in Auto. Or count up to one crossing for each defense during auto( this makes autonomous far more interesting and emphasizes coordination)
Make auto shots worth more damage on the tower
Robots can start anywhere on their opponents half of the field. (No spy bot rule)

Defenses/breaching
3 crossings to damage a defense
All defenses must be damaged for a breach
Eliminate defense classes, any combination of the 8 can be present.
Remove drawbridge or make the drawbridge transparent(no amount of driver skill can make up for being too short too see over the drawbridge.)
Low bar crossings don't count towards score in any regard, it would then just be an easy route into the courtyard.

Tower/shooting
Change base tower health
Make high goals worth more points
Make high goals worth more damage
(Low goal robots are a bit op in low to mid level play, probably not a concern at High levels though, right?)
Make scales worth more points
Make challenges worth less (or no) points
(Challenges are basically free and Scales are wayyyy too undervalued)

Allow alliances to pick their position on the alliance wall, at least in elims.

[Kevin Leonard]

I like some of these changes quite a bit.

Transparent drawbridge is a good idea. The idea of static defense arrangements is interesting. Perhaps just for quals? Make the blue defenses one set for all of quals, and the red defenses the other set.

Eliminations defense selections proceed as normal.

I'll likely comment later with other ideas, but these seem pretty solid.

[Koko Ed]

10 points for hitting a shot in the top goal from the neutral zone in the last 20 seconds (so teams don't get cute and keep "missing" to move all the balls from the neutral zone to the courtyard all game long to make it easy for robots to light up the towers).

[rich2202]

Addition of a crossing guard, a scorer who's job is just to count crossings to relive the refs for more important things. I'll be the first to volunteer.

Right now, they have 5 refs + head ref working in a zone formation.

IMHO, they should have 6 refs + head ref working in a man-to-robot formation.

It is much easier to see/call crossings and fouls if you are watching one robot continuously. Also, when a robot-robot foul happens, there are 2 ref's that will see it.

What you miss (and what is missing now) is all the loose boulder fouls. If a boulder is in the Outerworks, who knows where it originally came from.

Sally port crossing for a Ref on the wrong side (blocked by the open door) is also an issue. But, that is also a current problem.

[efoote868]

What you miss (and what is missing now) is all the loose boulder fouls. If a boulder is in the Outerworks, who knows where it originally came from.


I'd make bulldozing boulders while possessing another permissible... nothing worse than getting a boulder caught in your drive train slowing you down, and getting penalized on top of it. Insult to injury.

[Kevin Leonard]

Right now, they have 5 refs + head ref working in a zone formation.

IMHO, they should have 6 refs + head ref working in a man-to-robot formation.

It is much easier to see/call crossings and fouls if you are watching one robot continuously. Also, when a robot-robot foul happens, there are 2 ref's that will see it.

What you miss (and what is missing now) is all the loose boulder fouls. If a boulder is in the Outerworks, who knows where it originally came from.

Sally port crossing for a Ref on the wrong side (blocked by the open door) is also an issue. But, that is also a current problem.

I like this. It also allows referees to better judge intent, because they've been watching the same robot the whole match.

I'd add a clause that if a robot is trying to pick up a ball, and two end up touching the collector, that's not a foul.
I can recall multiple times this season where teams are going to pick up balls and get penalized for touching two of them. Also a particularly memorable one was where 2791 was lining up to shoot their batter shot, and two balls happened to be sitting in front of their robot when they did so. 2791 wasn't trying to pick those up, but they got fouled for it anyway.

[Chris is me]

I like this. It also allows referees to better judge intent, because they've been watching the same robot the whole match.

I'd add a clause that if a robot is trying to pick up a ball, and two end up touching the collector, that's not a foul.
I can recall multiple times this season where teams are going to pick up balls and get penalized for touching two of them. Also a particularly memorable one was where 2791 was lining up to shoot their batter shot, and two balls happened to be sitting in front of their robot when they did so. 2791 wasn't trying to pick those up, but they got fouled for it anyway.

This is one of those rules that was called differently per region. Some regions were much stricter about how "possession" was interpreted than others - in NE this kind of thing was basically never called unless a robot was clearly controlling two balls at once. I hope this is how IRI calls it as well. No need to bog the game down with these kind of penalties.

[XaulZan11]

Right now, they have 5 refs + head ref working in a zone formation.

IMHO, they should have 6 refs + head ref working in a man-to-robot formation.

It is much easier to see/call crossings and fouls if you are watching one robot continuously. Also, when a robot-robot foul happens, there are 2 ref's that will see it.

What you miss (and what is missing now) is all the loose boulder fouls. If a boulder is in the Outerworks, who knows where it originally came from.

Sally port crossing for a Ref on the wrong side (blocked by the open door) is also an issue. But, that is also a current problem.

I'd be interested to see this implemented. As a non-ref, I think it makes a lot of sense, but it wasn't viewed positively by refs in this (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=145672http://) thread.

[Captain_Kirch]

After seeing the playoffs in our division(Carson), we need the high speed impact rule from 2014 back. It was carnage.

[EricLeifermann]

This might not be possible as FMS might need to be changed but....

Get rid of RP for breaching in quals and replace it with the 20 points you get in elims.

Breaching should happen in every match, especially at IRI, and having it give an RP was an OP move by FIRST. Giving it the 20 point bonus still puts a emphasis on making sure the breach happpens.

[Gregor]

Given that there were still missed crossings on Einstein, something should be done to fix that..

[Chris is me]

Get rid of any and all tiebreakers. Replay every tie in elims.

[FarmerJohn]

Eliminate the portcullis (already being done), drawbridge, and sally port. No more major visibility problems, no more problems with teams missing boulders they can't see. In return require all 5 defenses be knocked out for a breach, and as others have said give breaching a point value reward instead of ranking points.

No audience selection - just let the teams choose all of them.

[marshall]

Go back to explaining fouls.

[Caleb Sykes]

Go back to explaining fouls.

Seconded.

[orangemoore]

Ties in eliminations are decided by another match not tiebreakers.

[headlight]

After seeing the playoffs in our division(Carson), we need the high speed impact rule from 2014 back. It was carnage.

Perhaps, but it doesn't really seem like there is that much space on the field to gain momentum, unlike 2014.

[cbale2000]

Eliminate the portcullis (already being done), drawbridge, and sally port. No more major visibility problems, no more problems with teams missing boulders they can't see. In return require all 5 defenses be knocked out for a breach, and as others have said give breaching a point value reward instead of ranking points.

No audience selection - just let the teams choose all of them.

You can't really get rid of both the drawbridge and the sally port, unless you plan to do away with the defense categories altogether and have teams put any defense in any slot. Aside from that, I for one, happen to like the portcullis. :rolleyes:

Ties in eliminations are decided by another match not tiebreakers.
This. So much this.

[Knufire]

This might not be possible as FMS might need to be changed but....

Get rid of RP for breaching in quals and replace it with the 20 points you get in elims.

Breaching should happen in every match, especially at IRI, and having it give an RP was an OP move by FIRST. Giving it the 20 point bonus still puts a emphasis on making sure the breach happpens.

I'd take this a bit further and replace the extra RPs for breaches and captures with their elimination point bonuses. I don't see a reason we should be playing a slightly different game between qualifications and elims.

In addition, remove the batter requirement for captures. I'm assuming tower strength will be raised for IRI and putting that many balls in the tower is an impressive effort in itself. Removing this requirement will remove the chances of a weaker 3rd robot losing the alliance 25pts by not being able to make it back to the batter on time, and opens up more strategic flexibility within the last 30s of the match.

[dellagd]

I'd take this a bit further and replace the extra RPs for breaches and captures with their elimination point bonuses. I don't see a reason we should be playing a slightly different game between qualifications and elims.

I agree with this one, at least in part. Focusing on the capture, for a team trying to rank very high, losing the one RP due to a single alliance member's mistake can be very defeating. I think teams should at least be allowed to make up for their alliance member's mistakes by outscoring their opponents above the 25pt bonus (and not spending a bunch of time pushing their own partner around, despite how awesome it was to watch).

For the breach, the importance is less, as one robot could theoretically achieve a breach alone, but if we are changing the capture, we might as well change the breach over to elims style too. The FMS might even let us do that already, though I am not sure where the play-style change made by the Scorekeeper, and if it necessitates actually running an elims bracket.

[Kris Verdeyen]

When I breach, your secret passage is no longer protected. I can get returning boulders with impunity, and cross back to the neutral zone without negotiating a defense.

This has the following advantages:
- it encourages faster breaching.
- it encourages higher scores
- it gets rid of some penalties
- it fits the theme

This can be combined with many of the other permutations mentioned (forcing three crossings, crossing all five for a breach, doing away with ranking points, etc).

You might also remove the one defender limit when the walls fall, if you want to force teams to be more strategic about it.

Look at it like this - whatever you do by forcing additional crossings is still going to be easy for IRI teams to do in two minutes. Anything that's reasonable enough to be implemented will still happen every match, it will just take longer and we'll end up with less scoring. This wil make fast breaching more important while still keeping the focus for the audience on robots shooting balls.

[Captain_Kirch]

Perhaps, but it doesn't really seem like there is that much space on the field to gain momentum, unlike 2014.

There's enough space to gain excessive force. A bump is enough to disrupt any shot. What I saw out there was excessive. Look at the match videos from carson field. I don't want any to ever have to experience play like that again.

I think a large amount of the issues I saw on that field were from uninforced rules, but adding another layer of protection is some positive step as opposed merely blaming refs.

Also the definition of intent may be vauge, but I think we can all agree that giving up points or drawing fouls should count as intent. Maybe we can make that clearer. You can't accidentally tip a robot inches from the outer works outer works, they were already gone. You can't accidentally push a robot into your own secret passage from your courtyard in the last 25 seconds when they should be running away. I saw both of those things happen in our field, and it needs to end NOW.

[Chris Fultz]

General guidelines we use are that we won't make changes that are a major impact to designs, and we try to limit changes so that teams don't feel compelled to spend all of June and July working on their robot to meet some new challenge. We are also have to consider changes that impact FMS, automated systems, and referees.

Thanks for all of the suggestions and input. We are working to create the modifications (if any).

Any rule modification will be posted for teams before the Invitation Response deadline, so teams can determine if they want to play the modified game before they commit.

[XaulZan11]

In addition, remove the batter requirement for captures. I'm assuming tower strength will be raised for IRI and putting that many balls in the tower is an impressive effort in itself. Removing this requirement will remove the chances of a weaker 3rd robot losing the alliance 25pts by not being able to make it back to the batter on time, and opens up more strategic flexibility within the last 30s of the match.

I think the batter requirement makes the end game so much more exciting. 330's second self-righting wouldn't have been that exciting for the 5 point challenge nor would 1678's and 1405's near misses at challenging be as heart-breaking.

[rich2202]

Tactical Flashlights must be on a switch for safety purposes. Accidental shining of flashlight near person (spectators included) is a technical foul, quickly escalating E&R with a red card foul.

[ollien]

Tactical Flashlights must be on a switch for safety purposes. Accidental shining of flashlight near person (spectators included) is a technical foul, quickly escalating E&R with a red card foul.

Would this include LED rings?

[Chris is me]

In addition, remove the batter requirement for captures. I'm assuming tower strength will be raised for IRI and putting that many balls in the tower is an impressive effort in itself. Removing this requirement will remove the chances of a weaker 3rd robot losing the alliance 25pts by not being able to make it back to the batter on time, and opens up more strategic flexibility within the last 30s of the match.

I adamantly disagree with this rule change, actually. The batter races are some of the most tense and exciting parts of the game. While it is frustrating to not make it onto the batter, it adds importance to the endgame and creates more opportunities for strategies and risk (last second scoring, hanging with an unreliable mechanism, etc) and I think the game would lose a LOT of its value if this were gone. This change more than most other changes would change the dynamics of the game a lot, and I don't think it's a positive change.

[rich2202]

Would this include LED rings?

While bright, the LED rings do not focus the light into a tight beam.

That said, there were some teams with LED rings that would be better called round LED panels. Maybe LED rings with more than 20 (?) LED lights.

[EmileH]

While bright, the LED rings do not focus the light into a tight beam.

That said, there were some teams with LED rings that would be better called round LED panels. Maybe LED rings with more than 20 (?) LED lights.

What about requiring switches for focused beams that produce more than x lux of light at 6 feet?

[Basel A]

I'd take this a bit further and replace the extra RPs for breaches and captures with their elimination point bonuses. I don't see a reason we should be playing a slightly different game between qualifications and elims.

In addition, remove the batter requirement for captures. I'm assuming tower strength will be raised for IRI and putting that many balls in the tower is an impressive effort in itself. Removing this requirement will remove the chances of a weaker 3rd robot losing the alliance 25pts by not being able to make it back to the batter on time, and opens up more strategic flexibility within the last 30s of the match.

These changes would make the game pretty boring to watch. This is one of the few games where a qual alliance that's totally outgunned actually has something to shoot for (and their fans something to root for), and it's because of breach/capture RPs. I think the reasons for keeping the latter have been well covered.

[S1LK0124]

This is something that a few guys on our team discussed that I thought would be an interesting concept/
What if for every 30 or so points a team wins by, they add an extra RP.
Example:
Both alliances score 4 RP
However, Red alliance scores 60 more points than Blue alliance.
Therefore-
Red Alliance: 6 RP
Blue Alliance: 4 RP
I would also like to add that this rule should be negated if one or more robots on either Alliance are shut off or lose COMs for any reason.

[Ozuru]

This is something that a few guys on our team discussed that I thought would be an interesting concept/
What if for every 30 or so points a team wins by, they add an extra RP.
Example:
Both alliances score 4 RP
However, Red alliance scores 60 more points than Blue alliance.
Therefore-
Red Alliance: 6 RP
Blue Alliance: 4 RP
I would also like to add that this rule should be negated if one or more robots on either Alliance are shut off or lose COMs for any reason.

I have a feeling that this would just inflate the ranking points of top tier teams while creating a larger divide between the top and the bottom percentiles.

[S1LK0124]

I agree with you. You make a great point, but my reasoning was because IRI is supposed to be for REALLY a good teams so the point gap wouldn't be that great for most matches. The point behind the idea was that it would give teams somethin to work toward before the competition, such as making their cycle time faster and finding a way to score more points.

[EricH]

Might have been suggested already, but ditch the requirement that has one defense from each group on the field.

That alone will likely put the Group C's and the Portcullis out of play.

[Travis Hoffman]

I apologize if such lunacy were suggested already, but since it seems many are considering breaching to be an afterthought, and greater visibility is desired...

Remove all defenses entirely. Bare carpet. Leave the secret passages. Field resetters, rejoice. Cycle times would greatly decrease - more matches per team.

2016? Meet 2014. Declare a safe shooting zone where the defenses used to be. Meet 2012.

Increase tower strengths to 15...or 20.

[PaulJeffs]

Each year, we look at what official rules might need to be adjusted for IRI.

We have the benefit of seeing how the game is played, and we can adjust the level of difficulty (when needed) to match the level of play we see at IRI.

Gneral guidelines we use are that we won't make changes that are a major impact to designs, and we try to limit changes so that teams don't feel compelled to spend all of June and July working on their robot to meet some new challenge. We are also have to consider changes that impact FMS, automated systems, and referees.

As a note, we were already discussing the Tower Strength change to 10. We will see how that plays out at CHP.

I like the game where RPs are used for qualification and then converted to points for eliminations. Raising the Tower strength at CMPs was a good idea, perhaps even a bit more would be good. Another thing might be to require all defense weakening to occur in teleop, effectively raising the number of defense crossing by three. Points could be earned during AUTO but the defense would not be weakened.

[piersklein]

Allow the possession of up to three boulders at a time.

Did someone say 6 ball auto?

[headlight]

There's enough space to gain excessive force. A bump is enough to disrupt any shot. What I saw out there was excessive. Look at the match videos from carson field. I don't want any to ever have to experience play like that again.

I think a large amount of the issues I saw on that field were from uninforced rules, but adding another layer of protection is some positive step as opposed merely blaming refs.

Also the definition of intent may be vauge, but I think we can all agree that giving up points or drawing fouls should count as intent. Maybe we can make that clearer. You can't accidentally tip a robot sitting in the outer works. You can accidentally push a robot into your own secret passage from your courtyard in the last 20 seconds. I saw both of those things happen in our field, and it needs to end NOW.

I re-watched some of the matches, SF1M1 did get a bit excessive, but overall I think most of the flips were due to the all terrain nature of the robots. The hits this year have much less energy than 2014, and the force is a side effect of a single defender trying to disrupt two or three robots at once, something you can't do if you're moving slowly or trying to brake before every impact.


I do agree with you about the intentional fouling of robots during the endgame and generally throughout the match, it was disappointing when I realized that rule was not really going to be enforced this year but we kinda just buckled down and dealt with it.

[Citrus Dad]

I think the batter requirement makes the end game so much more exciting. 330's second self-righting wouldn't have been that exciting for the 5 point challenge nor would 1678's and 1405's near misses at challenging be as heart-breaking.

Despite losing twice in a row for this reason, I agree that this change would be bad. Einstein was the most set of most exciting matches I've seen in sequence. That the final came down to breaking a tie was most appropriate.

I suggest replacing the first tie breaker with the auto points rather than foul points (and we could never remember which way the tiebreaker went). Let the teams have more control rather than leaving it to the fickle discretion of the refs.

[FarmerJohn]

Make it such that boulders can be launched across completely damaged defenses (or launched from the neutral zone to the courtyard when the defenses have been breached).

[seg9585]

1. Redefine a breach as damaging all 5 defenses.

2. Keep tower strength at 10 (like in Champs)

3. Make scaling more valuable -- 25 points

4. Allow robots to push up to 1 extra ball over/through the defenses (in addition to the one they are carrying)

5. Auto mode -- record multiple defense crossings if performed in auto

6. Make the rough terrain more difficult

[maxnz]

Make it such that boulders can be launched across completely damaged defenses (or launched from the neutral zone to the courtyard when the defenses have been breached).

I think that the first one would be too hard for the refs to determine the legality of the shot. The second one could be viable, though.

[Hitchhiker 42]

Make it such that boulders can be launched across completely damaged defenses (or launched from the neutral zone to the courtyard when the defenses have been breached).

The second option is in spirit of the medieval theme. Typically, when you are able to break down your opponent's defenses, it should be an option to feed through shots.

[Citrus Dad]

One obvious rule change: put actual water in the moat...:cool:

[maxnz]

The second option is in spirit of the medieval theme. Typically, when you are able to break down your opponent's defenses, it should be an option to feed through shots.

As we can see here (https://youtu.be/zIJ2UloCjJM?t=45s), some robots probably are capable of shooting that far.

[CalTran]

As we can see here (https://youtu.be/zIJ2UloCjJM?t=45s), some robots probably are capable of shooting that far.

For those who are wondering, 4646, in auto, accidentally turns and shoots a ball over to the Ref, a la 2014 assist.

[Gsquared]

I think making the tower health double and adding more weight to high goals would be a lot cooler. I also think allowing two balls to be controlled at once would mean a lot less undeserved penalties.

[orangemoore]

Reduce penalties for interacting near defenses/crossing.

Such that if a two robots come in contact during a robot cross as long as the contact doesn't affect the cross and is unintentional there isn't a penalty.

This would be useful for teams accessing the position 5 defense and secret passage at the same time.

[hectorcastillo]

Raise the low bar to 5 feet high

[MARS_James]

Might have been suggested already, but ditch the requirement that has one defense from each group on the field.

That alone will likely put the Group C's and the Portcullis out of play.

Well unless they build their own Portcullis it is out of play anyway. So if they do build their own defense please please please tell teams ahead of time what it will be with accurate schematics so teams can know if they can successfully cross it.


One thing I would love to know before we (or the Planning Committee) goes to insane with changing tower strength, is what percentage of qualification matches at champs had a tower brought down to 0 (or atleast had 10 balls scored) and what percentage had captures, cause this would help to see if captures were not happening because of tower strength or failure to get back to the batter.

Also I don't know if it is possible to do away with the extra RP for breach and capture since it is so ingrained into the FMS and referee panels but if we do go to a straight win/loss with bonus points for those actions (Like they did in 2012) I would love to see if we can use the breach and capture totals as the first tie breaker.

I think it would be cool also if we make it so there is an extra two balls that start in the castles and increase the number of balls allowed back in the castle by 1 or 2 to allow for teams to be more strategic in the balls in the tower instead of just creating a 469 in 2010 situation.

[Billfred]

Despite losing twice in a row for this reason, I agree that this change would be bad. Einstein was the most set of most exciting matches I've seen in sequence. That the final came down to breaking a tie was most appropriate.

I suggest replacing the first tie breaker with the auto points rather than foul points (and we could never remember which way the tiebreaker went). Let the teams have more control rather than leaving it to the fickle discretion of the refs.

I 100% agree with paragraph 1, and I could roll with paragraph 2 at IRI.

That said, I think ties in the finals (and only the finals) should be replayed. If finals yield the heavyweight title fight I think we're all hoping for, I don't think anyone minds the extra 10 minutes to settle it.

[Hitchhiker 42]

As we can see here (https://youtu.be/zIJ2UloCjJM?t=45s), some robots probably are capable of shooting that far.

At Suffield Shakedown, our robot almost made a boulder into the basketball hoop stowed up on the ceiling.

[b.arci]

Both alliances score 4 RP

Just a friendly reminder: It's not possible to award a total of 8 ranking points. Only one alliance can get the 2 RP for a win.

I think making the tower health double and adding more weight to high goals would be a lot cooler. I also think allowing two balls to be controlled at once would mean a lot less undeserved penalties.
Do you mean high goals should be worth more? Based on CMP, high goal shooting bots already have a distinct advantage over low goal bots. No need to further the gap IMO.

I apologize if such lunacy were suggested already, but since it seems many are considering breaching to be an afterthought, and greater visibility is desired...

Remove all defenses entirely. Bare carpet. Leave the secret passages. Field resetters, rejoice. Cycle times would greatly decrease - more matches per team.

2016? Meet 2014. Declare a safe shooting zone where the defenses used to be. Meet 2012.

Increase tower strengths to 15...or 20.
Wouldn't this completely change the idea and strategy behind the game? I love the concept, and it would be cool to play, but maybe at a less "important" offseason.

[Jellypickles234]

I adamantly disagree with this rule change, actually. The batter races are some of the most tense and exciting parts of the game. While it is frustrating to not make it onto the batter, it adds importance to the endgame and creates more opportunities for strategies and risk (last second scoring, hanging with an unreliable mechanism, etc) and I think the game would lose a LOT of its value if this were gone. This change more than most other changes would change the dynamics of the game a lot, and I don't think it's a positive change.

+1 I agree entirely

[Tom Line]

Change a challenge to only require 2 robots. Stop penalizing alliances a RP just because another of their robots doesn't show up to the field (happened to us 3 times this year). Keep a capture at 3 robots.

Please do NOT remove the safe fire zone in the defenses. Too many teams designed with this in mind (us included).

Change accidental contact when crossing defenses so it isn't a foul.

If a robot breaks down, don't allow other teams to gain points from them. A blue alliance robot broke down in our courtyard and it made me feel a little immoral when two of our robots hit him trying to get to the batter and got climb points for it. If they interfere with something fine, but being broken down in a corner.... no.

[Tom Line]

Tactical Flashlights must be on a switch for safety purposes. Accidental shining of flashlight near person (spectators included) is a technical foul, quickly escalating E&R with a red card foul.

These lights are not classified as lasers. They are not focused enough and your blink reflex is fast enough that they do not create a safety issue.

We are using a small cree LED flashlight. Is that tactical? We had a fun discussion with a volunteer at worlds after passing 2 district inspections, a state champ inspection, and the world champ inspection when he told us our light was too bright. We pointed out that the field lights AND the pinpoint spots being used were much brighter than our flashlight, and asked him to have those turned off as well.

[S1LK0124]

That's true. However that was just a hypothetical situation to help explain the concept.

[Collin Fultz]

One thing I would love to know before we (or the Planning Committee) goes to insane with changing tower strength, is what percentage of qualification matches at champs had a tower brought down to 0 (or atleast had 10 balls scored) and what percentage had captures, cause this would help to see if captures were not happening because of tower strength or failure to get back to the batter.

Some of that data (from TBA Insights)

Field - Avg # Goals Qual - Avg # Goals Elims
Arch - 8.4 - 8.9
Cars - 8.9 - 12.2
Carv - 9.1 - 13.4
Cur - 8.5 - 12.6
Gal - 7.9 - 11.7
Hop - 8.9 - 13.0
New - 9.3 - 12.9
Tes - 9.0 - 10.8
Ein - N/A - 16.3

[carpedav000]

Perhaps, but it doesn't really seem like there is that much space on the field to gain momentum, unlike 2014.

Keep an eye on 829:

http://www.thebluealliance.com/match/2016inpmh_sf1m2

[Hitchhiker 42]

Change a challenge to only require 2 robots. Stop penalizing alliances a RP just because another of their robots doesn't show up to the field (happened to us 3 times this year).

Seems like the teams at IRI are good enough and have worked on their robot enough to show up to the field anytime they have a match.

[seans341]

Ranking should go back to W-L-T. Let the breach and capture award their playoff point bonuses during qualifications. All else should remain the same.

[Richard Wallace]

Tower strength 11.

No tiebreakers: 1 pt each in quals, replay in playoffs.

Not sure about changes that would require FMS modifications, such as replacing breach and/or capture RPs in quals with the bonuses they earn in playoffs; is this easy to implement? If so then IRI should use playoff scoring in qualifications (exception: yellow/red cards in quals are still for individual teams).

[pfreivald]

If I were in charge of making Stronghold a top-tier-robot-only game, I would:

Keep the tower strength at 10, as at Championship.

Keep all the defenses. (Heck, if we can design for the drawbridge, anyone can--and if they didn't, that's really their problem, isn't it?)

Get rid of crowd selection and choose the random defense with a coin flip. (I might just be grumpy that they institutionalized a built-in penalty for having a small team.)

Change it so that any boulder that has contacted the carpet of a secret passage must be carried over the outer works to be scored (as if it had come from the neutral zone--so no more scarfing up boulders from your opponent's secret passage and immediately scoring them, though loose boulders in the courtyard are still fair game).

Change a breach to all five defenses.

I would be adamantly against changing the breach/capture QPs--robots were designed with those parameters in mind, and it would be too significant of a change at this point. As others have said, it adds both tactical decision-making and end-game excitement.

[JesseK]

Tiny change:
Spray paint the batter shields to match the color of the alliance.

Removes a massive annoyance for the drivers. Lets the audience watch great driving. Also maintains the challenge of fitting onto the batter for a scale.

[Kevin Leonard]

Tiny change:
Spray paint the batter shields to match the color of the alliance.

Removes a massive annoyance for the drivers. Lets the audience watch great driving. Also maintains the challenge of fitting onto the batter for a scale.

I like this change a lot.

[rick.oliver]

My first choice would be to change nothing.

If you want to simplify the game for volunteers, replace the defense selection with a randomized selection of the defenses which applies to both alliances for a complete "round" of matches during qualification. Then, in elimination matches, allow the alliances to select their defenses. Keep the audience selection in both qualification and elimination.

To increase the game difficulty:

- Require that all five defenses are defeated to earn the breach points.
- Increase the defense strengths to 3 or 4.
- Increase the Tower strength to 12.
- During elimination matches, require one (or two) scale(s) plus challenge(s) to earn the capture.

[CalTran]

- During elimination matches, require one (or two) scale(s) plus challenge(s) to earn the capture.

I imagine a lot more teams would have designed in a scaling mechanism if they knew at the beginning of season that it would strictly be a must for an Elims alliance. While I like the spirit of the change, this one puts a heck of a lot more stock into scaling robots than a normal change would.

[CalTran]

Also, somewhat related to a rules change, and may be a nonissue:
Will IRI be using the vinyl flaps that FIRST adopted ~Week 2 or will the low bar fabric made out of bumper material be reinstated?

[MARS_James]

Some of that data (from TBA Insights)

Field - Avg # Goals Qual - Avg # Goals Elims
Arch - 8.4 - 8.9
Cars - 8.9 - 12.2
Carv - 9.1 - 13.4
Cur - 8.5 - 12.6
Gal - 7.9 - 11.7
Hop - 8.9 - 13.0
New - 9.3 - 12.9
Tes - 9.0 - 10.8
Ein - N/A - 16.3

To me this says that an increase to maybe 11 or 12 may be necessary but not much higher

[g_sawchuk]

I have a few suggestions for changes that would modify game play slightly in regards to strategy, but not alter it in regards to robot design.

1. Different tower strength in Qualifications and Eliminations. Based on some of the averages displayed on this thread, I feel like 10 tower strength in Qualifications, and 12 in Eliminations, would suit the game play.
2. Bonus Boulders. We all loved the can grabbing in 2015. It was the one touch of exciting in 2015. I suggest two "bonus boulders" that are placed on the center line (in the spot of two boulders regularly placed there). These boulders are worth double points in Autonomous or Teleoperated. It will introduce new strategy, and value of being close to the center line at the end of Autonomous. Should we stay put in auto? Should we try and snag it in Autonomous? Should we cross, score, and come back? That's for teams to decide.
3. End Game Bonus. It's exciting, not to mention nerve wracking, seeing if a robot will make it to the tower to lock in the capture at the end of a match. I propose a bonus on boulders scored during the last 20 seconds of the match. This could be, perhaps, 2 points extra on high goals, and 1 point extra on low goals. Should you try and score lots in the last 20 seconds? Should you play it safe and go to the batter early, and not risk trying to score for bonus points? Once again, a new strategic dynamic to consider.

All thoughts are welcome on these rough drafts of game improvement suggestions.

[Kevin Leonard]

To me this says that an increase to maybe 11 or 12 may be necessary but not much higher

To me this means that championship divisions are much weaker than IRI is, and any three teams at IRI should be able to easily put 10 balls into a goal as long as none of them lose communications.

Honestly IRI qualifications should either:
Leave tower strength at 10 (then captures only occur if someone fails to get on the batter or some other strange thing occurs)
Increase it to at least 12, maybe up to 16 even, depending on how challenging we want capturing to be.
12 means each robot scores 4 balls each, or 2 robots score 6 balls each.
15 means each robot scores 5 balls each, or 2 robots score 7.5 balls each.

You might be saying "But Kevin, 7.5 high goals in a match for one robot is a huge number". But you're forgetting that low goals exist.

I think teams having to switch between which goal they're scoring into, or otherwise increasing their output of ball scoring is something cool about this game. I also think captures shouldn't be a given, even if it's IRI. I like having strategy meetings in close matches be a potential choice between getting a guaranteed capture and perhaps losing the match, or playing defense, losing the capture, and winning the match.

These choices are a big part of why I had a blast in FIRST Stronghold, and I'd like to see them stay at IRI.

[rick.oliver]

I imagine a lot more teams would have designed in a scaling mechanism if they knew at the beginning of season that it would strictly be a must for an Elims alliance. While I like the spirit of the change, this one puts a heck of a lot more stock into scaling robots than a normal change would.

Fair point, but this is off-season and teams have time to make functional improvements. Still, my first choice would be to change nothing.

[NotInControl]

I vote to Increase the Autonomous time from 15 seconds to 20 seconds. I guess you can leave the Teleop Period the same.

The reason for this change, while subtle will make a huge impact in autonomous. Robots whom currently have a 2-ball auto can spend the time to make them more accurate (more time to visually line up) instead of firing rapidly just to run back and get the second ball.

Also this opens the door for other robots/teams whom may have had slower mechanisms or systems which did not support 2 balls in 15 seconds or under, but the extra 5 seconds may now allow them to accomplish the task.

I think off-season events are all about pushing the limits, and this change may help make that 80-point auto a reality at IRI.

Obviously this would potentially extend every match 5 seconds, unless it was reduced in Teleop? Is that a big deal? Over 100 matches that would only be ~+8 minutes.

Plus side, this change should be simple to integrate, and does not negatively effect any current design or team. Should only be a positive addition if implemented

[ratdude747]

Here's an idea I had over dinner.

Make audience selection done via some sort of app or website. I'll preface that unless I have a work conflict, I'll be volunteering to scorekeep at IRI, so any resulting scorekeeper burdens I acknowledge and accept :D

The idea is that since IRI is an often watched livestream, for an audience selection to really reflect the audience, the livestream viewers should also have a say. In addition, this gives a more quantitative result to choose from. Finally, it frees up a little bit of cycle time (not that it's enough to care about).

Here's how it would work: When the selection is "scheduled" the MC announces the selection. AV shows the defense screen (which scorekeepers can do w/o making a selection at that time). Then the next match proceeds, during which people (including livestream viewers) vote on the defense. After the score is announced for the match, the selection's result is announced and entered into FMS (possibly the app's result screen shown by AV). While that puts the actual selection one match later than normal, as long as the choice is made before prestarting the first match using that selection, FMS is happy.

[Kevin Leonard]

Here's an idea I had over dinner.

Make audience selection done via some sort of app or website. I'll preface that unless I have a work conflict, I'll be volunteering to scorekeep at IRI, so any resulting scorekeeper burdens I acknowledge and accept :D

The idea is that since IRI is an often watched livestream, for an audience selection to really reflect the audience, the livestream viewers should also have a say. In addition, this gives a more quantitative result to choose from. Finally, it frees up a little bit of cycle time (not that it's enough to care about).

Here's how it would work: When the selection is "scheduled" the MC announces the selection. AV shows the defense screen (which scorekeepers can do w/o making a selection at that time). Then the next match proceeds, during which people (including livestream viewers) vote on the defense. After the score is announced for the match, the selection's result is announced and entered into FMS (possibly the app's result screen shown by AV). While that puts the actual selection one match later than normal, as long as the choice is made before prestarting the first match using that selection, FMS is happy.

This is a cool way to do it that feels more quantitative.

The one thing about audience selected defenses is that it does give you another piece of information to use during strategy discussions. Knowing 2/5 of the defenses prior to the match helps very much with match strategy.

[Billfred]

Change it so that any boulder that has contacted the carpet of a secret passage must be carried over the outer works to be scored (as if it had come from the neutral zone--so no more scarfing up boulders from your opponent's secret passage and immediately scoring them, though loose boulders in the courtyard are still fair game).

The other ones could be debated, but this one should not happen. If a human player blows the roll-in, and the drivers are willing to risk the penalties of going into the secret passage, then they should be able to reap the benefits.

[pfreivald]

The other ones could be debated, but this one should not happen. If a human player blows the roll-in, and the drivers are willing to risk the penalties of going into the secret passage, then they should be able to reap the benefits.

I didn't figure everyone would like all of my suggestions. :)

[Richard Wallace]

Change it so that any boulder that has contacted the carpet of a secret passage must be carried over the outer works to be scored (as if it had come from the neutral zone--so no more scarfing up boulders from your opponent's secret passage and immediately scoring them, though loose boulders in the courtyard are still fair game).The other ones could be debated, but this one should not happen. If a human player blows the roll-in, and the drivers are willing to risk the penalties of going into the secret passage, then they should be able to reap the benefits.I didn't figure everyone would like all of my suggestions. :)I'm with Billfred on this one. Your other suggestions are reasonable and should be debated. But this one is just legalized hoarding. It would change the game fundamentally, because alliances would not need to guard their SPs. Entrance to the SP would become a chokepoint, with a high potential for fouls. The result would be less shooting and more damage to robots. I think this area is one that the GDC considered carefully, from the viewpoint of match flow, and I think they got it right.

[pwnageNick]

Okay I know I'm super late to this, but I had kicked around the idea with a few people of changing what was needed for a capture in quals (I don't think it's needed in elims, but perhaps)

You would still have to get whatever the tower strength is with boulders

You either have (a) all 3 robots either parked on the batter OR (b) at least one robot parked on the batter and a second robot must be hanging fully above the low goal.

I thought this would help solve the problem of being stuck with a dead partner in a qual match and also give a bit more value for hanging. Maybe I'm biased but this seems like a good thing I think.

Just my $0.02. I think this would help the rankings not be quite as dependent on match schedule luck.

[Lij2015]

If you give the spy bot 3 boulders that can do whatever they want with, but only let them use them in the last 30 seconds that would make for some actually interesting human player strategy.

Or allowing multiple boulders to be held in the last 30 seconds as well, could add an interesting twist.

[djperry1009]

Or allowing multiple boulders to be held in the last 30 seconds as well, could add an interesting twist.
I too think this is an interesting idea, however, I do not know any teams with multiple ball-manipulation capabilities because the game this year did not allow for it. This would screw many teams over and I don't think changing the game that much at this point is worth the extra bit of excitement. Keep up the ideas though!

[EricH]

I too think this is an interesting idea, however, I do not know any teams with multiple ball-manipulation capabilities because the game this year did not allow for it. This would screw many teams over and I don't think changing the game that much at this point is worth the extra bit of excitement. Keep up the ideas though!

I'd go out on a limb and figure that any team with an intake separate from their shooter could handle two (one in the intake, and one in the shooter). Just don't try to have two ready to shoot (973 in Ventura--Adam didn't look too happy after that match, something about a jammed shooter, a foul, and a tech foul when they crossed a defense--at least it looked accidental, but still!)

[Anthony Galea]

Whatever you do, please do not get rid of the Category C defenses completely. Many teams (including mine) use it as a safe way to get out of the courtyard, which is a valid strategy.

Second note: if IRI's rule changes are about trying to increase scores, and if they are to standardize the defenses (which I would recommend to make field reset much easier), I would recommend choosing the ones with the highest damage rate per category, if its possible to find that out (I don't know what those are).

[ZamericaZ]

Whatever you do, please do not get rid of the Category C defenses completely. Many teams (including mine) use it as a safe way to get out of the courtyard, which is a valid strategy.

Second note: if IRI's rule changes are about trying to increase scores, and if they are to standardize the defenses (which I would recommend to make field reset much easier), I would recommend choosing the ones with the highest damage rate per category, if its possible to find that out (I don't know what those are).

I also agree about not removing category C defenses for this same reason, as well most tall bots are designed to be able to solo them so i think it'd also be unfair to those teams.

http://www.thebluealliance.com/insights/2016 the damage rates can all be found there