idea for next year
 

i think it would be really cool if they change it up, and instead of alliances working by themselves and giving points to the team, they should work with each other. For example, it would be awesome if the game next year was maybe soccer, but we have to play with each other, have one robot goalie, and others who play on the field.

Re: idea for next year
 

There was a game, long before your time, that was 4v0. It is still one of the least-liked games in FRC history.

Re: idea for next year
 

what was wrong with it?

Re: idea for next year
 

4 robots, and the only thing they were running against was the clock. The sooner you E-stopped all the robots, the more points you got. But there was no contact. No battles for position. No races to score one last game piece before time rand out. Just a race to get 2 goals on a balanced bridge, not terribly unlike this year's, and hopefully one of those goals had a load of small balls in it. Great way to take a nap if you didn't have a good robot.

It wasn't a competition. FIRST has not done anything like that since, and probably never will. A vocal majority said "We don't want that again." (A less-vocal minority was in favor--but finding them may be difficult these days.)

The bridge part has returned, yes--the center bridge in this year's game--but it's optional. There have been occasional 6v0 matches, notably in Breakaway, but by and large, we want to win a match, win an event where we actually play against someone, that sort of thing.

Re: idea for next year
 

but i'm saying that if two alliances were actually playing against each other, it would be better, right? or not?

Re: idea for next year
 

It was very boring.

Re: idea for next year
 

That ruins your entire premise of working with each other.

Re: idea for next year
 

I THINK the OP is getting at the fact that it could seem that in Rebound Rumble teams won't really be working together, but just have their individual made basket points added to their alliances points*. Unlike in soccer where there are goalies, defenders, midfielders and fowards who work together by passing to score points or in real basketball where players pass and set picks to score baskets.

*I think Rebound Rumble (and most FIRST games) alliance score is more than just a sum of each robot's offensive capibilities.

Re: idea for next year
 

Maybe, four team robots against four, professionally built, professionally run, robots. Now that, that would be a challenge.

Re: idea for next year
 

"Professional" means paid. Paid means lots of money. Lots of money means it's not gonna happen.

Re: idea for next year
 

Perhaps one robot then. To be honest, I like static objects because, unlike robots, you can rely on them to work far more often and they are much harder to break.

Re: idea for next year
 

Ah, now I get it. OP, I think you may be surprised at how most matches in this game play out. While you could have 3 separate robots doing the same task (collect from wherever and score), you certainly won't see that every time. Not most times. It will be viable for some alliance pairings, but difficult matches aren't won by robots adding their points to an alliance score, they're won by teams working together: communicating, sharing and splitting tasks, working together. (Like, say, basketball.) Scoring, feeding, defense, bridge manipulation, even autonomous features, will involve serious cooperation.

This is true of every game, and Rumble is really no different--the barrier/bridges actually facilitate it. While there are some games more conducive to it (Breakaway) and some less (Lunacy), most really land in the middle. Great alliances work together seamlessly, good ones communicate the splitting/sharing of the field and/or tasks, and poor unlucky ones try to work independently without communication and end up in each other's way.