Petition: Change Elimination Rounds

[Todd Derbyshire]

Due to the support I have gotten in my other thread about the changing of the Elimination Rounds to a best of three format I have decided to have a petition here on Chiefdelphi. Please only sign the petition if you are against the petition please post in the related thread. Thanx

Dear FIRST,
We believe that the scoring of the elimination rounds purposes some malicious scenarios in this year's upcoming game. Acts of malicious violence to take "elite" bots out of a round to better an alliances chances against easier opponents is a dilema that I believe is more real than surreal. This is clearly not in the spirit of FIRST. However this can be prevented by a return to a best of three matchs where teams can build and repair and not make it an assassination process. I thank you for your time and consideration
Sincerely
Todd Derbyshire

[Rob Colatutto]

...or we could not change the set up of the game, because its a new idea, and it has to be tried out. its also pretty cool how you can come back and win if you lose the first match

looking at this....'elite' robots, as you say, is that in the spirit of FIRST? that the rules should be changed for a 'better' team so they don't get beat by an undergod team as some refer to a newer team as.

[Joe Matt]

Disagree. TOO MUCH depends on luck here. It's not a coin toss, it's FIRST. Start an online petiton using one of the online petition services.

[Bduggan04]

I'd like to be the FIRST to say, I can't believe you want to change the game to better suit you! There are going to be rules you don't like. There always are. There are rules to prevent malicious damage. Maybe you should petition to ensure they're enforced well instead.

[Bduggan04]

Originally posted by Nataku
...or we could not change the set up of the game, because its a new idea, and it has to be tried out. its also pretty cool how you can come back and win if you lose the first match

I agree. I think teams could really capitalize on this rule.

[Brandon Martus]

Originally posted by Todd Derbyshire
Due to the support I have gotten in my other thread

I saw 1-2 people agree, and 8-9 people say 'no, dont petition'.

I don't have an opinion. I just moderate. I just thought I'd throw that in there, though. :)

Oh -- and you should've made this a Poll. It'd be easier to count votes. Next time...

[Melancholy]

...except from a vending machine.


Be open to new things. If it doesn't work out this year, I'm sure it'll go back to the old way. Ever year, the competition is very well thought out. There's always a reason for everything, even if it isn't exactly clear at first.

[Gope]

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.

I must say, put my name on the petition list, any rule which alows an inferior alliance to advance over a superior alliance is one I will not and cannot agree with.

[Rob Colatutto]

but you all calling them inferior and superior alliances is exactly what FIRST doesn't want. who said any alliance can't beat another that has better bots. one alliance could be all great bots...but not be able to work together. and then there could be an alliance of rookies, who all work great together, are you saying its wrong for the rookies to advance?

[Gope]

I'm saying that with teamA having an actual 39 point spread over teamB then teamA should advance.

But with this rule teamB has a EP point spread of 39 over teamA.

that is the opposite of fair. this certaintly wouldn't go over well in the world of sports(which dean says we are competing with), and it will make alot of people who are usda the world of sports very mad(that means we dont compete with sports well)

i can go on and on about how this rule is bad

[Rob Colatutto]

i can recall dean and woodie telling us many times that "this game is not fair". if the other team can beat you, then you deal with it, they won. theres no saying that one teams alliance parter won't be working one match, which could explain why they had 0 points the first time, and this way it gives that team another chance to win in the next match and move on. the rules can't be changed to bennifit your team

[Melancholy]

This is a game where the rules change every year. Every sport has it's own rules. The best team is the team that wins, according to the rules, not according to last year's rules.

I could be great at baseball. The world's best player ever! Well, that would be the case if baseball didn't require you to hit a ball, and throw a ball, and run fast, and all you had to do is add up the number of people who make it home... Rules are rules.

[Skabana159]

It was never said that an alliance which has better bots is the superior alliance. It was simply stated as "the better alliance," whether this means better bots, drivers, teamwork or all of the above.
This rule has a strange dual nature. While your own score does matter, as opposed to last year where it didn't, your opponents score matters twice as much as yours does. Maybe this suggests that an alliance shouldn't attempt to defeat it's opponent 50-10.

Of course, we have to remember, "This competition is not fair." I say keep the rule. It will be fun to see how team's strategy differs between qualification rounds and elim's.

[indieFan]

Originally posted by JosephM
Disagree. TOO MUCH depends on luck here. It's not a coin toss, it's FIRST.

Well, while you're at it, why not be allowed to pick who you are allied with throughout the entire competition, not just the Elim. Rounds? Why stop at just the ER's when whether or not you even make it to the ER's is based on luck to a considerable degree.

That bit of sarcasm off my chest, I say leave it as it is.

indieFan

[Gadget470]

A champion should be reliable and able to follow the structure of the game. (Ammendment to a previous comment).

The game's objective is to have the closest score possible between the alliances to achieve the greatest score. The team able to have the score be 50 v 49 should be crowned champion of the matches because it's completing the objective and not being 100% dominant.

[Gope]

Originally posted by Gadget470
A champion should be reliable and able to follow the structure of the game. (Ammendment to a previous comment).

The game's objective is to have the closest score possible between the alliances to achieve the greatest score. The team able to have the score be 50 v 49 should be crowned champion of the matches because it's completing the objective and not being 100% dominant.


As much as I hate to admit it, you have a good point.

[roboticscom13]

I say keep the rule. The rule was made for a reason... in the real world there will be situations that you don't like your just gonna have to design your strategy with this rule driving it. As far as the superior alliance....the best alliances sometimes don't win just because your alliance has two or more good robots doesn't't ensure that you will win the match. I have seen the best robot pairings lose to pairings that i never would have thought would win...... It's all in the game , its all part of this 6 weeks...Strategy is as important as having a robot that is reliable.

[tatsak42]

For all you know, last year, many 'superior' teams may have been bumped just cuz one of their motors died in a freak accident. The whole strategy of "beating, but not too badly" makes you think and the 2 of 3 idea gets rid of that smoothly. Reliability is great.

And besides, it adds a bit of entertainment here ;)

[Jim Meyer]

Sounds like if you know you can't win the first match you want to get as few points as possible. Also if you win the first match and get a lot of QP's you may be able to easily tolerate a loss in the second round as long as you have very few points yourself. (one robots makes sure you have 0 points and the other plays defense)

Veeerrrry interesting....

[Jay Lundy]

Imagine this:

The game starts. The 2 robots on one alliance don't move at all at the beginning of the match. They both have "damaged drive trains." The other 2 robots set up the field in such a way that they are going to win 100 to 99. With 30 seconds left, they both move up onto the ramp and wait. Suddenly, with 2 seconds left, both of the "disabled" robots dart out and knock over a stack or knock 2 tubs out of scoring position. The other robots can't do anything about it because they are relying on the 50 points from the ramp. The team that did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING all match wins 99-98.

Is this strategy, or is it a loophole? Sure this would only work one time, but I can see some modified version of this where one alliance does all the work only to be beaten by a misjudgement.

There are several factors involved in winning a game:
- Robot functionality
- Robot reliability
- Pre-game strategy
- In-game strategy

This year the focus in the EPs is mostly on in-game strategy whereas previous years it was robot functionality/reliability and pre-game strategy. I can see how this can work to level the playing field for rookies who tend to not build as good a robot as veteran teams, but I agree there is too much luck involved in in-game strategy to make it a good way of determining a winner.

Sure, it isn't about winning, but it sure does feel good when you do win, and even better when you know you won because you drove better, built a better robot, and strategized better, and not because your opponent forgot to count 2 of the bins when they counted up the number of bins in scoring position.

[Jay Lundy]

Originally posted by tatsak42
For all you know, last year, many 'superior' teams may have been bumped just cuz one of their motors died in a freak accident. The whole strategy of "beating, but not too badly" makes you think and the 2 of 3 idea gets rid of that smoothly. Reliability is great.

And besides, it adds a bit of entertainment here ;)

Yeah I can see how it makes it more entertaining. Rather than watching a match between the #1 seeded alliance of ChiefDelphi, Kingman, and Beatty and the #8 seeded alliance of rookie teams 1555, 1666, and 1777 and knowing who is gonna win, now there is a chance for the rookies to advance (I'm assuming here that under previous year rules the #1 seeded alliance would have slaughtered. We've all seen elim matches like this.)

I guess I'm torn on this. There are reasons to have it both ways.

[Ken Leung]

Originally posted by Gope
...
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.

I must say, put my name on the petition list, any rule which alows an inferior alliance to advance over a superior alliance is one I will not and cannot agree with.

If you are in the competition long enough, you would remember the reason for winners getting multiple of loser's score. Dean thinks it is a much better idea of everyone get more points than just 1 team beating the other by a lot of points to zero. That's why he made it part of the scoring.

And besides, knowing this is the rules of scoring, team A deserve to be the losing team simply because they didn't let the other teams to get more points to build up their base points. I would say its a poor strategy they are playing, by not taking advantage of the scoring rule. Team B was the smarter team because they let team A get 49 points, and thus get 50 + 2*49. So, in this case, the "inferior" alliance didn't advance over a superior alliance into the next round.

[EStokely]

I'm not torn at all. I see no reason to decide this is SO bad it must be changed.

Its the rule on scoring.

Don't slaughter your opponants. Thier score is part of the total. If you know this going in then its not a surprize.
OK the 100-99 set up with the team with "two bad drives" "could" happen.
But thats only one match. Its takes two matches to determine a win.

And now that you suspect this plan by those sneaky opponants you can counter it.

I really like the scoring. Its consistant through out the game.

[IVIaxor]

I think this is better than last year. Last year you had to play the complex strategy through all the qualifying round, but as soon as you got to the elimination rounds the strategy totally changed. All you had to do was brute force your score as high as you could. Some robots that did well in the qualifying rounds faired poorly once they got to the elimination rounds.

This way the strategy is consistent throughout the game, it does not change in the elimination rounds. I think that is definitely a good thing.

[Jason Morrella]

I don't get this debate at all.

2 points:

1. FIRST clearly listened to team input more than ever this year, and much of that input from teams was to keep the game scoring the same in the qualifying and the eliminations? They did that - so a petition by teams to change it would be a little hypocritical at this point. Maybe this will fall into the category of "be careful what you wish for" - but we won't know until March.

2. Both alliances have the same scoring issues before them - luck is not an issue here any more than it is any year.

If you win 2 matches, you win - that simple. If you win one and lose one, then whoever managed the points better wins. If an alliance is clearly superior to their opponent, they'll win both matches. If not, they may split 1-1, in which case the points determine the winner - both alliances know this going into the round, so if someone wins on points than they played the two matches better than the other alliance....seems that simple to me.

Like Dean & Woodie said - this is a game: unfair is kids without opportunity, education, food, water, peace, and so on. If both alliances are playing with the same rules and both know the scoring and how a winner is determined - that is fair.

Heck - we have a president who didn't even get more votes than the other guy - so if our country can't even get "scoring" down, maybe we should hold off on a petition to change something which hasn't even been proved flawed yet?

Should be a fun year - can't wait for March!