Elimination Rounds-Impending Disaster?

[Todd Derbyshire]

Ok this is my only complaint with this year's game however it is a major one. The elimination rounds being the highest score out of two matches I believe is not the best way of determining who is the more deserving team. I don't see why we couldn't stick with the best two out of three. So basically what is happening now is two alliances evenly matched face off and because of a malfunctioned part for one game that allowed the other alliance to run "amok" and ring up the score moves another alliance on. Somebody please try to make some sort of reasoning with me on this because I'm failing to see how this system is justifible.

[DanLevin247]

I'm upset with that rule to, it doesn't seem fair, and dean put up a huge fuss about being fair, didn't he? Start a petition, I'd sign it

[David Kelly]

why do people aways resort to petitions if they dont like something? its a GAME and part of the challenge. the hard is what makes it fun. Dean did say that there would be lots of changes in the future. you'd better start getting used to it.

[DanLevin247]

David, I understand where you are coming from, but I assure you, there will be some great teams but on the back burner because of this rule

[Scott358]

Dear Todd and Dan,

One of the most important life lessons you can take away from being involved in this event (beyond being inspired about science and technology), is that life is not fair. I'm not sure if you saw the kick-off, but even if you did, I don't think you really heard what Dean said, as he addressed the exact issue of fairness.

My advice, as a mentor, is that you not waste time on petitions about such trivial things. If you'd like to petition something, pick a more worldly and worthy cause, not the rules to a game.

You only have so much time and energy, put them to good use!!!

Regards,
Scott358

[Gadget470]

A champion should be reliable. That's all I have to say.

[Todd Derbyshire]

I just don't like the fate of my team's chances being put into one match its not fair for that team or alliance. If a team breaks down in just one match or a team looses power for a few seconds(Don't tell me this hasn't happened before), or even technical difficulities they are forced into an unsurrumtable scenario. Now if that style of play seems fair to you then fine don't sign the petition. Instead give me a reason why I should favor that style of play over the best out of three matches with the rules being whoever has the highest score wins. Also about this "new" system is alliances are often going to be unbalanced. If the rule is all alliance members most compete the elimination rounds could come down to who was the best secord round pick. Often the first match will be even whoever in the second round one of the alliances will often gain an edge as the scoring power of the teams tends to trickle down in the second match as you are only facing one of the team's in the top 8 along with anyone else in the field usually in the top 20. Due to this team's that are strictly scoring machines can run amok and score all the points they need during this round to move on in the elims. Now I'm not saying that this is always going to happen but I can see with a few of the veteran teams and the way the game was played last year once you put in that second pick they just run up the score. So it simple I guess really if this rule stays in place. Build a bot that is a superior scorer by itself and you will win. These are my fears for the elimination rounds and I'm hoping if FIRST if you are listening please remedy this situation. Thanx

[Bduggan04]

Originally posted by DanLevin247
David, I understand where you are coming from, but I assure you, there will be some great teams but on the back burner because of this rule

The greatest teams don't stop to complain. They accept what they're given and decide what to do with it. This goes for great people as well.

You never know when the rule you hate the most, can turn out to be the most beneficial to you. I mean what if you're that great team on the backburner?

[rees2001]

David, I understand where you are coming from, but I assure you, there will be some great teams but on the back burner because of this rule
__________________________________________________ _

First of all the "great" teams will overcome. & it doesn't hurt to shake things up a little bit. Got ya thinkin' didn't they.


And PLEASE don't make a petition. From the words of my father "life's not fair learn to deal with it."

[Rob Colatutto]

make way for change, if you don't like it no one is telling you to play :D

[FRANK(WGH)]

As with all the bad calls this year take it and roll with it.

EX.
"Chairman's Award!!!!!!!"

Anyway that's life!

[Todd Derbyshire]

Ok fine but I can tell you now from a strategist stand point this type of round will definitely promote some malicious play. What am I talking about you ask? Well it could possible be that strategy for team A,B, is to malicious damage robot C during match 1 therefore leaving match 2 with draft picks and the A, B alliance with there top 8 team and there first pick. Please don't try to tell me spirit of FIRST will prevent this. Cuse for the most part to a degree it will work however what will happen sadly is this elimination plan. Don't tell that this hasn't happened in the past because I have years of experience on drive team and as a strategist that have seen this happen at anything from a small mini competition to sadly enough Nationals. To refer to me to deal with this "change" (which it really isn't because it is the same as the 2001 year's game rules) that clearly was disliked in 2001 would be a mistake. We are here to give feedback to FIRST and voice our opinions. I personally find it disturbing that they went back to this system for the points I have stated in this thread this system is too delicate to corruption and not producing a true winner. So yah build your robots robust all you want but when your team is on the sidelines after the first elimination rounds just make sure you voice your opinion in the FIRST forums in August.

[Jacqui Sutton]

To those concerned about the fairness of it all, think back on what dean said. He said that the game would never be fair, and it's the truth - there is always going to be some element that is unfair to someone, whether it be the rookies or maybe it could be unfair to the "best" team there and they might not win the championship. That's life. It really is. No matter whether your team wins or loses the event, you've still been exposed to an amazing experience, and if you believe that your robot was good enough to win and some *unfair* element of the game stopped that, then you should feel satisfied in knowing that you did a great job regardless, and also be satisfied in knowing that the team who did infact win also must have done a great job. It sounds cliche, but the most important thing here is not winning.

I'll admit, I want to win as bad as anyone else here. We have an even numbered team, so we dont get to go to nationals if we dont win, and as it's my first/last year on our team, I REALLY want to go to nationals. I have no doubts that every team wants to win, some more so than others, but unfortunately, as far as statistics go its not possible..I think Dean had a very valid point when he said that if we want to complain about something unfair we should think about the millions of people who dont get an opportunity to participate in this event. Maybe we should petition that to the government, make FIRST a part of every school. Petition against things not involved in FIRST, not the things that are...

[Skanker]

hey---it's a good thing that they even give you TWO chances! in regular sports, you only get one shot. If your star quarterback is injured during the super bowl, tough luck. You just gotta try to find a way to work around it. A truely good team will be able to overcome.

So quit whining! do something about it: Ensure that your robot WORKS when it needs to! That's part of the challenge! Don't leave things to chance. check and double check your systems before the game.

[Gope]

This rule is stupid. Say you have teamA and teamB

in match one teamA wins 50 - 10
teamA gets 70 points
teamB gets 10 points

in match two teamA looses 49 - 50
teamA gets 49 points (total of 119)
teamB gets 148 points (total 158)

although in match one teamA completly dominated and in match 2 teamA only lost by 1 point(compare that to the 40 points teamB lost by) teamA does not advance. This is a horrible rule and should be changed!!!

[Chris P]

I think it is a good idea as it keeps some of the strategy from the seeding matches. Last year, teams had to show that they can keep matches close in score if they really wanted to do good, and when the elimination rounds came, they threw that away and went straight for power. But now, you seem to have to hold your strategy through the the elimination rounds as well.

Chris

[Amber H.]

I think Skanker said it best here.

[Craig Roys]

I believe the purpose of this could be to eliminate having two different groups of teams -- those built for qualifying rounds and those built for elimination rounds. Don't think of it as unfair, but rather as another challenge to overcome.

Good Luck

[D.J. Fluck]

If you win both, you move on no matter what...whats the big deal?

[Kris Verdeyen]

If what Gope wrote is correct (the final elim score uses qual points), then it was obviously changed to deal with those who said, "Make the elimination rounds the same as the qualifying rounds." This change requires you to not beat up your opponent to win, the same way that qual points require you to keep the score close in the qualifying matches.

What Gope wrote - that the clearly dominant team lost - is likely the point of this change, not an unintended consequence, and it will make the elimination rounds closer and more interesting.

[Matt Attallah]

I like it. It puts more pressure on what you should have to do to "Earn your spot." Personally, I love it!

P.S.-- Gadget470, Some Guy found out that you where stealing his stuff, and now instead of a little pic, you have a huge pic saying to stop it... :yikes:

[SharkBite]

first of all i would like to say to all of those who are arguing about "fairness".... of course life isnt fair but this is obviously something FIRST did to cut back on the time.... and if it is less fair than the previous method, FIRST should know.....


i dont think any of us should judge this new method just yet..... personally i think it could be interesting.... you dont just want to win the match anymore, but you want to completely block out your opponent in the finals... i think i like it

[Sean_330]

It never ceases to amaze me how people love to complain about something before they actually see it in practice. I think that instead of complaining, we should concentrate on the good aspects of the game. FIRST listened to many of our concerns from past years and took action to remedy them. For that they are to be commended. I remember people who said the alliance system would be a disaster the first year it was announced. Alliances worked out well. So, instead of complaining about something we all have no control over, i think we should be open minded, give this year's game a chance and see how it works out. Maybe we will like it better. Regardless of how it works out, I appreciate all the work FIRST does to put these events on!

[Matt Reiland]

Everyone who hates the rule is worried about a robot on your team becoming disabled and then losing all of the points in the second match. Using the same thinking what is to keep the opponents robot from becoming disabled in the second match similar to what happened to your own in the first?

A great robot, capable of winning the regional or national event should: First of all not break, it should be build robustly. Second, if it does break you should have designed sub assembly's that can be swapped out to bring it back into competition very quickly (Such as spare gearboxes)

As for teams being malicious and going out to break you robot, bring it on, every team here should know that there will be big time interaction this year just like last so you better armor up all of the vitals on your robot. (Just look at how the kickoff showed a powerful robot block the other from the stack and from getting on the platform easily dominating the match.)



:ahh:

[IsabelRinging]

Oh shush.

Yes, this rule miiiight work against a robot that's better. That's still very very iffy, though.

But I know you won't be complaining if this rule ends up helping you this season.

When it's obvious that you've built a much better robot and unfairly lost elimination rounds because of this rule, then MAYBE you have the right to complain and whine (I know I would).

Right now, I think we should all just sit down, shut up, and work on our bots. I don't like the rule either, but I think being respected by the other teams for working hard and building a great robot is just as valuable as winning.

[Todd Derbyshire]

Ok first off all major sports except for football have a best of seven series in their "elimination rounds." Lastly I'm not saying the way the game is now unfair cuse I know it is unfair as dean said. I know the game is unfair in the advantage of veterans. I just don't like the idea of spending six weeks on my robot to watch it go down in the finals because it did its job in the first match and totally dominated and then in a close match it loses! What does that message say to the team that totally dominated throughout competition and then lost a match 30-29 in the elimination rounds. In my book a win is a win and for a team to say that they are the national champions this year in my eyes they better sweep. That is why I hope they would refer back to the best out of three format whoever wins a game wins a game. Otherwise let the impending disaster begin and we will all sit back and grin and bear it and totally hate it.

[Nate Smith]

While I'm in favor of keeping the current format of advancing based on EP in the elimination matches in order to keep it being one game throughout, and not two completely different strategies between qualifying and elimination, I do agree with the argument that two matches does not allow for the recovery from a fluke error in one match. So, I propose the following:

1. EP are accumulated throughout each match series (Semifinal & Final) as currently outlined in the rules.

2. Rather than having two matches as a minimum in each series, we have at least three.

3. At the end of these three matches, the alliance with the most EP will advance to the next series. In the event of a tie in EP, the alliance with the most wins in that series will advance. In the event of a tie in win count, a "sudden death" match will occur. The alliance with the most EP earned in this sudden death match will advance to the next series.

What do you all think?

[Scott358]

Enough already. If you're going to "hate it", get out now.

It's a game, which means the outcome has no bearing on the future. Pick something else, like children who have no food, if you want to exert so much energy towards a effecting change.

Again I'll remind you that you only have some much time and energy, use it wisely.

Regards,
Scott358

PS - Maybe one day you be a writter for a news station with grandious headlines like "let the impending disaster begin", but this is enough.

[Chris P]

All in all, the "life is unfair" comment is the best to describe it. It's a challenge so face it :)

Chris

[MOE]

WELL SAID TODD back to 2 out of 3


MOE

[Justin]

Has FIRST made their reasoning for this format of the elmination rounds clear??? I didn't get to see kickoff so I don't know, maybe they have some good reasoning behind this, to me right now it doesn't seem that way but I wouldn't mind hearing someone at FIRST attempt to defend the current elimination round format before making a final judgement.

just a thought,

Justin

[1337 /\/\4573|2]

Originally posted by DanLevin247
I'm upset with that rule to, it doesn't seem fair, and dean put up a huge fuss about being fair, didn't he? Start a petition, I'd sign it


As I recall it was pointed out that the game was not going to be fair...





pwned++

[HolyMasamune]

A main point of this rule is to prevent totally dominating robots from winning. Last year the best robots were the ones in the semifinals and finals. However, it'll take the skills needed during the seeding matches this year to do well in the elimination (aka not winning by too much and "helping" your opponents). I think it's a fair rule to give teams with more strategy and not just robot abilities a chance to win.

[tatsak42]

Again, it keeps good strategy. There's a quote in an old thread somewhere talking abotu the 3 goal bots from last year that says something like "Well, we might not score points, but in the finals, all you have to do is win, not score points."
And yah, Dean made a big point about it not being fair. If you can win with the smaller margin, just looking at points, you woulda been the one with the better strategy and therefore the winner... I don't know, I just like it this way, I'm biased

[SharkBite]

i must say i think its all about saving time... FIRST is always trying to find ways to cut back on the number of matches, FIRST is growing so rapidly it has to be this way..... after all saving time is the main reason behind the alliance situation and most of us have warmed up to that by now... give this new elimination set up a chance.... we all know if its really that bad FIRST wont do it a second year