Has the GDC ever clarified if human players hoarding balls in this fashion is "against the spirit of the game"? I'm pretty sure that's what they meant when they said something along the lines of human players are there to put the balls in play as soon as possible.

Re: Inbounders!
 

They don't have to. They set a maximum the Inbounders can hold, two apiece, and a rule that the corral has to be emptied as soon as possible.

So question, if they empty the corral holding two balls and don't feed the balls onto the field, is that hoarding or..?

Re: Inbounders!
 

It's a perfectly sound game strategy - one that a team like 45 may be wise to employ. Check out this thread - especially post #12 and on.

Re: Inbounders!
 

You're welcome to keep up to 6 balls [5 is safer] behind the glass at any one time. I have no problem with this (totally within the game spirit), we and do it quite a bit ourselves. I'm talking about hoarding, i.e. inbounders deliberately holding more than 6 balls or deliberately keeping balls in the corral: G31. It's a crazy difficult call catch consistently with reffing this year (I know it), but it drives me crazy as a coach, even in quals. I've lost track of the number of alliances I've seen hoarding just while walking past the field.

The setup for HP foul calling this year is my biggest problem with this game. It kills a lot of strategy.

Thanks for the link! I can't say we haven't been discussing this. ;)



Is there refs behind the wall that aren't also watching the field? If so, that should be their primary thing to watch, am I wrong?

Sorry for all the questions, I haven't been following CD this season as much as last.

Re: Inbounders!
 

There are no refs stationed behind the alliance station walls this year. (Feel free to also check match videos if positions are unclear.)

That makes it really dificult to judge. I don't see any way to fix it without taking judges away from field judging or the possibility of falsely incuring dogma penalties from 2010.

Re: Inbounders!
 

Disclaimer - I have not served as referee.
My friends who are referees said each one is assigned to a quarter of the court. My experience has been one usually pops back behind the alliance station during hybrid to see if anybody touches the scored basketballs before teleop begins; after that, they're primarily watching the robot interactions. I've anecdotally seen quite a few <G31> and <G33> calls missed.

So problem: Refs are currently (from experience) unable to call g31 and g33 penalties.

Possible solution: Do you think it would be possible for FIRST to instruct the refs to pay more attention to that area, be it even just a poke every 20-30s or so without impacting the game on the field?

Re: Inbounders!
 

That's exactly the problem. It's not the referees' fault, it's simply the setup of the game. My complaint is that the game is setup to make calling critical penalties difficult.

...Suffice to say that many a drive team at different early events can tell you how refs tried to overcome the problem (some I personally really liked), head refs have contact with the GDC, and there is currently no officially sanctioned solution.

EDIT: Actually, it's been mentioned publicly to drive teams before, so the answer is that the GDC does not want to do so, and specifically instructed the opposite some weeks ago.


I think I should end my input on this discussion now. Maybe before now.

Re: Inbounders!
 

If I recall correctly, some events had "extra" refs--a 7-person crew instead of a 5-person crew--with the "extras" watching the humans. Apparently, HQ shut that down, though.

If you're going to make something a foul, why not enable the enforcement of such a foul? (In this case, it is actually enforceable. Unlike some other competition rules that are not.)

Re: Inbounders!
 

Getting the ball over the bump has been no problem save for the occasional robot getting in the way. The real difficulty is the shots at the end. Especially if you haven't thrown in a while since hitting these shots is pretty much all about muscle memory.

In the eliminations in Wisconsin I hit three in a row (not all on the same hoop level actually: 3,2,3) but mainly because I had thrown so many within the past hour I pretty much had the motion down. When practicing at home however it really varies depending on how worn out the walls are.

Re: Inbounders!
 

Which fender are you talking about, the near one or the far one? Getting past the near fender doesn't seem to be much to brag about, but getting all the way over the far fender would not be as useful as getting the ball close to a robot near the key.

Unless you're talking about throwing over the alliance station wall during the last 30 seconds, which it doesn't sound like you meant.

That is what he meant.