What do you think of the game?
 

So everyone at the beginning of and during build season all had their views toward this game on whether they liked it from a spectator perspective or not. From what I heard the views toward this game were generally negative with some people comparing it to the likes of Lunacy. So now that week 1 is all over and we've all seen the game be played legitimately what do you think of it now?

Personally, this game is starting to grow on me. The strategy this year seems to be more important than ever in elims, and to see it all unfold is a true spectacle to watch. Not to mention the amount of defense that is being played makes this game a good ol' fashioned robot rumble. I don't think we've seen that in recent years and it's kind of nice for a change. Although the penalty values do seem to be a bit too high.

Re: What do you think of the game?
 

It is a good game and is very exciting to watch, HOWEVER:

-Penalties are kind of ridiculous (calling vs not calling, as well as point values)
-Scoring is unreliable and unfair

Fix these 2 and this is one of the most fun games to watch I have ever seen

Re: What do you think of the game?
 

I liked the game from day one and I still like it today even after the play from our first week one event. I like it because it is exciting to watch and their is a lot of strategy behind the game this year.

Re: What do you think of the game?
 

Chaos, pure chaos and it will only get worse as weeks progress. Major referring changes needed. They need allot more help to keep the game under control. If not changed then this is battle bots and the last robots working win.

Re: What do you think of the game?
 

As human player, I expected this game to be pretty dull, and some of the qualification matches our team (624) played at Alamo this weekend were.

However, our elimimination matches, especially finals, were extremely intense. The game is is definitely growing on me and the team members in the stands told me the same thing.

I think that many people were expecting the game to be relatively simple, with many cycles, but what they got was brutal defense. This happens in football as well. Most people don't enjoy watching defensive games because they tend to be slower, eventually when something breaks through the defense it is amazing.

Overall I think the game is great and just needs to be viewed with a different perspective.

Re: What do you think of the game?
 

I did not think much of the game when it was announced, and many of my students thought it was a joke. But it is much more action packed with good teams on the field.

When there were mostly rookie and 2nd year teams on the field though it looked like no one knew what they were doing. Balls were rolling around, being bumped everywhere. It was like the opening scene from Temple of Doom, chasing the diamond and the antidote.

Defense has played a much bigger role, too... and slamming your opponent! Saw some pretty hard hits taken by robots that didn't seem to be designed to take hard hits.

Re: What do you think of the game?
 

This is spot on. Seconded.

Re: What do you think of the game?
 

I like it now that I've seen it. Very exciting and action packed...

What I don't like: consistency in penalty calls. I get that a Ref isn't going to see everything, but come on... Penalties need to be consistent; dare I even question a little favoritism?

This specifically referring to G28: Deliberate or damaging contact with an opponent ROBOT on or inside its FRAME PERIMETER is not allowed.

Either call it for everything and for every robot, or don't call it unless the other robot is obviously damaged from contact. Too much grey area with this rule.

Just my 2 cents.

Re: What do you think of the game?
 

+1 on this.

I liked the game all the way through build season. It seemed like great coopertition. But, the change of the contact-inside-frame-perimeter rule from absolutely no contact in previous years to allowing incidental contact inadvertently created battle bots. At Alamo, my team's robot had everything above the bumpers stripped off in two matches, we've been pulled by the back side of our bumpers at least once, and the pool noodles we mounted to illustrate the contact were torn up. Other teams at the competition saw speed controllers ripped out, pneumatic cylinder pistons bent, and drivetrains gummed up with wiring and other robot parts that ended up on the field.

In my opinion, it's not enough to just enforce G28. The rules need to be changed in some fashion to bring down the intensity of the inside the frame perimeter interactions. I don't know what that change is, but if robots keep getting broken like this, I fear we will see teams (particularly newer ones) leave FRC out of frustration or disappointment.

Re: What do you think of the game?
 

I found the game really exciting to watch. However, like many others have said, I think the referees have way too much to pay attention to. There should also be 2 scorekeepers ( one to watch the blue alliance and one to watch the red alliance). The ref should have the responsibility of penalties and dead balls.

Re: What do you think of the game?
 

+2 on this
Why do you need to go full tilt boogy, across the field, to slam into another robot? Is it just to see how much damage you can do to another robot? If so, you are in the wrong arena. Try Battle Bots.
My motto is "Do unto others as you would have done to you". I'm more then happy going toe to toe in a shoving match to see who's better, but to hit another robot at full speed :confused:
*this is my opinion only*

Re: What do you think of the game?
 

Third-ed.

It is a very difficult game to play because the three drive teams have to be so synchronous with each other. Ego and over-confidence are killers, as is distraction.

With our heavy reliance on our alliance partners to get assist points (and thus wins) we were left twisting in the wind when they were unable (or unwilling, believe it or not) to assist in scoring, which lead to a few disappointing losses. This made us very sensitive to drive team compatibility much more than in prior years when making our pick list.

To think that if we had won one more match (and at least one was decided by foul points!) we could have been 2nd seed...

We also had to have several auto scores corrected for a wide variety of reasons. The refs are really over-loaded.

Re: What do you think of the game?
 

I love the game when it is played well, I am frustrated by it when it is played cluelessly. When teams got together in elims and actually executed strategies the game was fluid and good to watch. Even huge pileups and defensive struggles I was ok with because (At least in eliminations) occurred during the end of matches when both teams were struggling to score the game winning point. See F2 of Alamo if you are dubious.

I showed this to my non-FIRST friend, he loved it. Direct quote: "I would be totally ok with skipping this calc lecture to go watch this." He thought that the strategies required for teams to succeed was incredible. 1772, 148, 118 and 624 were his favorites. It took him a minute to realize how teams could just gain a massive amount of points with one shot but once I explained the assists everything clicked for him.

Re: What do you think of the game?
 

I really like this game, and I think the overwhelming negativity toward it will calm down when we start to see changes take place and teams get used to the rules a bit more. The deep strategy this game presents got cast aside a bit by the fouls and bounce out shots in week 1, but week 1 always has problems so I'm willing to overlook it for now.

I was a bit confused at the beginning of the season about why they chose to go without an endgame, but I must say, endings are way more exciting this year without one. Regardless of how accurate the scoring has been so far, the real time scoring is a great representation of what the official score will be, knowing exactly how many points an alliance needs to come back makes for some thrilling matches. Only having attended Central Illinois regional so far, I have already seen about 4 very memorable endings, 2012 was the only other game in recent years I can say something like that about.

Re: What do you think of the game?
 

I would have liked to seen what the penalty points were for up on the board.

At GSD, we were seeing teams loosing by 100+ penalty points and it wasn't obvious why. I hear most of them were human player issues, but am not sure.

I think it took to the second day for the refs and volunteers to figure it out too.

I also didn't see consistant ball handling by the volunteers to the human players, it got confusing.

Human players weren't sure if they were "allowed" to get the ball off the peditstal, or they were going to be handed it, or if they could put it on the field.

And yes, what others have said, the games were exciting to watch, but some teams were playing "hit the robot so they'll drop the ball" or so it appeared.

These are just my observations from the stands... the first games are always a learning curve.. unfortunately.

Re: What do you think of the game?
 

Do you have a link to that final match at Alamo?

Re: What do you think of the game?
 

Re: What do you think of the game?
 

Besides the penalties and the pedestal delay issues which will be overtly discussed this is my other huge issue:

Why can we not place a piece of Polycarb, plywood, or really anything flat over the rails above the drivers stations. I saw way to many balls going fully through the goals, only to hit the support rails behind them and bounce back out. These balls are scored and should not go back into play forcing teams to do what they already did. This is a very easy fix and should be done by FIRST for week 2 events. If not I think it could also be a detriment to the game. Just imagine a team being down by 10 with 5 seconds left shooting a ball through the upper goal as time expires, only to see the ball bounce right back out after it fully crossed the plane of the goal. Not fair to the game.

Re: What do you think of the game?
 

From what I've seen so far, I feel this is one of the worst games in recent history. While I do admit there are some good matches (there have been some matches I loved watching), I feel there aren't very many. I have watched far too many matches where all I see is a bunch of robots piled up pushing each other around. I hate watching teams that are perfectly capable of scoring being helplessly knocked around by two opposing robots. It's not that they didn't build their robot well enough or execute strategy well. They simply can't do much when they have two or three robots slamming into them while they're trying to move around and score. Another thing I hate to watch is when a team misses a shot or drops a ball, and two opposing robots puppy-guard the ball, making it very difficult for the alliance to get it back.

I would like to point out that while many of the things I've mentioned above are good strategies, I feel they make the game a lot less interesting for the viewers.

From the start, I never liked the idea of coopertition in this game. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of coopertition (my team has even won the coopertition award), but the way this game integrates coopertition makes it a coin toss as to whether or not you will win a match. You are heavily dependent on your alliance partners in this game, so many of your qualification matches can be determined simply by the caliber of your alliance partners. I hate to watch some of the best teams in the world do poorly in matches simply because they are paired with a team that can't compete. Overall, I feel this game has a lot less scoring than it should because of how easy it is to play defense. It's like watching a sports game where the players just fight with one another rather than try to actually score.

All this being said, I do feel there is a lot of room for changes to be made that will drastically improve the game and make it much more exciting to watch. I am also hoping that as we move into more competitive events (michigan champs, world champs, IRI, etc), we will begin to see alliances focus more on scoring than defense.

Re: What do you think of the game?
 

I actually think this game has some really good potential as a great game for spectators. There are a few big issues that need to be sorted out, but I'm hopeful that this game can evolve into something good. We'll see how it shakes out in the next few weeks.

Re: What do you think of the game?
 

I was really excited at first, but then was really disappointed when I saw the "only one ball in the game at a time" thing. But I remember reading somewhere that people were upset about 2007 and 2008 because there was "too many game pieces" and then "not enough game pieces".

I think we're too picky and should be glad a committee of people get together to make sure these games are interesting.

Re: What do you think of the game?
 

I'm going to second this. I attended week 1 in Nashua as a spectator, and I really enjoyed it. With only two balls, it made it much easier to figure out what was going on. Also, I now believe for spectators this is a game of events, not scores. It makes matches in which you have no stake actually exciting. Trusses, catches, blocks, forced fumbles, and scoring are all exciting once you give up on keeping track of who's winning.

I think the fouls incurring helped me to give up on paying attention to scoring and just enjoy the events occurring on the field. I found until the finals, the score on the board mattered little to me as a spectator, and I was very rarely able to correlate the score on the board to the events on the field. I wouldn't mind seeing a more detailed breakdown, i.e. mobility, hot goals, auto bonus, low goals, high goals, assists, trusses, and catches.

Re: What do you think of the game?
 

I give it an Incomplete.

Once the broken parts are fixed (impossibility of reffing/scoring, draconian HP penalties, hot goals and pedestals not working right), then I will make my assessment.

Re: What do you think of the game?
 

I don't like it. Maybe my opinion will change when we actually play, but depending so much on other teams.and having only one game piece makes for a kind of boring game.

Besides that, this team update NEEDS to fix the week one issues.

Re: What do you think of the game?
 

I think the game is exciting in itself. While hard on robots it does make it fun to watch.

From a competitor standpoint it does seem many things need to get resolved to make this game better.

Re: What do you think of the game?
 

Can't believe I'm saying a penalty should have been called this week, but @ 1:50 a call was missed on the human player that would have added 20 pts to blue and given them the game. Perfect example of a ref overwhelmed with too much to watch.

It's a good game that needs more refs.

Re: What do you think of the game?
 

Based on my discussions with parents from other teams in the stands at GSD the scoring is too complicated for most non-involved spectators to understand. Even with the cheat sheet in hand they couldn't follow the scoring without a lot of discussion.

To me if spectators can't come in and immediatly know whose winning by watching there is an issue.

This game is really close to being good with an interesting goal setup and a great scoring object, but somehow the whole is less than the sum of its parts right now.

I'll give it a meh for now fitting in my years of involvement ranking as thus:
2004, 2006, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2010, 2007, 2009, 2014, 2008, 2005, 2003

Re: What do you think of the game?
 

I know what you mean...

More refs? maybe, as long as they do a good job.
And as others have said, fix the goals so balls don't bounce out, and relax the human player boundaries, or make it a 5 point penalty not 50 :eek: .

Re: What do you think of the game?
 

Over all I like the game, I wish like most others that balls didn't bounce out of the goals and that there were more refs. But other than that I loved watching this game, it has lots of chances for defense.

Re: What do you think of the game?
 

I don't know if it was just me but I was at the Southfield district and it seems that multiple times I watched teams only get 20 point cycles when I thought 30 points was due? Robot A would receive the ball from driver station, then truss over and robot B would collect off of the ground and score...am I missing something? Was it something to do with control or...? Thanks ::safety::

Re: What do you think of the game?
 

You can't get 3 assists (30 points) with 2 robots at all... Do you mean it was a high goal score with a truss and 2 assists, only worth 30 total?

Re: What do you think of the game?
 

Correct, sorry I thought I had it worded better. That is exactly what happened but they were only awarded 20 points.

Re: What do you think of the game?
 

It depends where the inbounding and shooting robots were. If either of them were not completely in a zone when they possessed the ball (i.e the scoring robot's wheels were touching zones 2 +3), there is no assist. If that wasn't the case, then the situation you're describing was scored incorrectly, and I noticed the same issue at some of the events I watched.

Re: What do you think of the game?
 

Also, keep in mind that TRUSS (and CATCH) scores are added immediately; they do not get added when you complete the cycle. The 20 points might have just been the high goal (10 pts) plus 2 assists (+10 pts).

Re: What do you think of the game?
 

I have just a general question because it happened to our alliance in the semi-finals this past weekend.

If an opposing teams robot hits our alliance wall so hard during autonomous that it knocks down an entire drivers station including laptop and controls, shouldn't there be some type of penalty? or a redo?

Re: What do you think of the game?
 

as far as I'm aware, there's no penalty for that (unless there was clear intent, which I doubt). Make your driver station more capable of staying on the station.

Re: What do you think of the game?
 

G16 blue box allows you to catch your falling OPERATOR CONSOLE, but I also suggest using some velcro to secure it to the stuff provided on the shelf. (See the ARENA section in the manual)

Re: What do you think of the game?
 

Stick some Velcro on the bottom of your driver station, and attach your laptop to it, and it shouldn't fall off.