Originally Posted by Bryce2471 (Post 1356289)

Is it easier for a given team to get a high OPR at stacked event than a softer one?

Originally Posted by Bryce2471 (Post 1356289)

I think that assist points being the first sort in standings after qualification points, forces good teams to work with their partners. Even if it means that the alliance wont score as many points.

Originally Posted by Bryce2471 (Post 1356289)

I also think that assist points being awarded in the 0 10 30 order gives an advantage to teams who are going to highly competitive events.

Originally Posted by Michael Hill (Post 1356328)

I think OPR is as worthless statistic in this game. It works ok games where there is a lot of individual contribution, not so much with teamwork. 2013 was a great year for OPR. 2012 wasn't so bad either, but 2014 is not a good year for OPR.

Originally Posted by Navid Shafa (Post 1356329)

I'd have to strongly disagree. OPR and CCWM is certainly better some years compared to others, that I won't argue. After watching Central Illinois, I'm guessing you are dissapointed at the numbers you saw at the event or the rating your team has right now. A lot of Central Illinois teams saw rather low OPR/CCWM values, because defense was brutal there. I'm sure you can attest to that. If you are trying to compare teams from CI to other events, you are going to be disappointed.

Why not take a look at the database here.
I think you'd be surprised at how well of a job it's doing as a whole, I certainly am. Take a look at some of the other events.

If you still disagree, I understand and respect your opinion. That being said, I'd love to see any other quantitative metrics you are using to rank and evaluate teams, I'm rather obsessed with these kinds of things. :D

Originally Posted by Michael Hill (Post 1356339)

If you're using OPR for anything like picklist, I think you'll find yourself disappointed.

Originally Posted by Michael Hill (Post 1356339)

I would also say that trying to validate OPR with ranks at regionals is also a useless statistic (why not just go by rank then if your OPR matches?).

Originally Posted by Michael Hill (Post 1356339)

When you have a game that hinges on another team's ability to complete tasks, OPR will not be a good indicator of performance.

Originally Posted by Michael Hill (Post 1356328)

I think OPR is as worthless statistic in this game. It works ok games where there is a lot of individual contribution, not so much with teamwork. 2013 was a great year for OPR. 2012 wasn't so bad either, but 2014 is not a good year for OPR.

Originally Posted by Matt_Boehm_329 (Post 1356386)

Which OPR are we talking about, the one with or without penalties? The one with penalties I feel is hyper inflated as some of the top OPR's have more than 25% of their scores in penalty points. While it matches well with seeding and the other metric (because penalty points are big this year), I don't think it shows the actual power of a team. (thebluealliance uses OPR with penalties included I believe)

Originally Posted by Ether (Post 1356407)

I haven't been able yet to find a viewer that can open xlsm files with Excel 2000.

Originally Posted by Ben Martin (Post 1356369)

On the subject of OPR/CCWM--has anyone had good success with using them as a forecasting tool for this year for "end of qualifications" standings from an earlier point in time (i.e. end of last full qualification match day)? I know many people feel that the statistic is trash with regards to being a performance indicator, but I have heard of several elite teams using these statistics for forecasting in prior years.

Originally Posted by RyanShoff (Post 1356424)

LibreOffice opens his spreadsheet fine under Linux. I assume it would work for Windows too.

Originally Posted by Ether (Post 1356407)

Unfortunately, removing awarded foul points from the final score requires using Twitter data, which is incomplete and may contain errors or redundancies.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=127619

Originally Posted by Navid Shafa (Post 1356357)

If you haven't looked, how do you know it's bad?



First and most importantly, I would never make a picklist solely off of quantitative metrics, nor would I want to pick teams based on Pit-scouting and my assessment after watching that robot play. A good combination of both is what makes holistic scouting so valuable.

In almost every FIRST game, a high seeded captain is looking for a robot that is a strong offensive robot. This is exactly what OPR could assist you in finding. You could almost always look at a list of the top teams in OPR and pick one of those.

The second pick is not something you'd want to determine by OPR. Often, you are lucky to find a robot that can play offense, especially at small events or districts. Things like Pit-scouting become extremely important. I'd often look for teams with Multi-Cim gearboxes and strong 6WD or 8WD bases and drivers that know how to use them in matches effectively.


I've never done this, nor I would attempt to do so. A team's rank in seeding quite often does not directly correlate with robot performance, there are many factors that impact the tournament rankings. I certainly would not expect OPR to exactly match the seeding. Look back to 2010 and 2012's seeding systems, the seeding was greatly impacted not only by your partners but the opposing alliance. Perhaps if we had an extremely large sample size these kinds of ranking comparisons would become relevant...



This is exactly why I brought up CCWM before. This is still in my opinion accurately determining personal performance considering a mixture of different alliances and compositions. If we notice a distinct amount of parity between OPR and CCWM we know that a team has done more or less of the scoring for their alliance. It can also help narrow out teams that ranked extremely high or low, due to really strong or really poor match schedules. i.e. A team with a large CCWM value is doing the bulk of the scoring in general for their alliance.

Since you haven't taken a look at it yet, here is some information from your event, Central Illinois:







They look pretty accurate to me, especially at the upper end. I would say both these do a much better job of ranking robot performance than the seeding wouldn't you?

Since you haven't got a chance to look at OPR for the events or your team, I posted the link earlier, but I made a page for you with data just from Central Illinois here: Central Illinois OPR/CCWM with Filtering. Enjoy!

Originally Posted by Michael Hill (Post 1356474)

I'd like to see an OPR justification for why 254 chose 973 and 2135 at CVR. Until then, I'd much rather rely on actual scouting data for real performance evaluation. This game has more facets to it than usual, and there are more ways of scoring points. Previously, points were mostly scored by putting something into a goal. This year, many more things have to be done to get points (and a win). This year is all about choosing compatible robots, not just ones who can put points on the board by themselves. 973 was second to last in OPR at Central Valley, but does that mean that they didn't perform well? Sure, the top teams that can put sick points up are going to bubble to the top, but after about 20-30 teams (overall), it's a big jumble. Isn't it the teams after 20-30 the ones you really care about?

Originally Posted by Ed Law (Post 1356451)

My spreadsheet automatically ignores the redundancies. If a match is replayed, it will use the later match and ignore the original match. Also I only use the twitter data for a district/regional event if there are no match data missing from that event.

Originally Posted by Cory (Post 1356523)

OPR is a BS metric this year. This game isn't about scoring. Pretty much every other game in FIRST has required more than one good offensive robot, so you are forced to pick the second best scoring bot at the event, as the #1 seed. Not this one.

You need three things in this game. A really good front court robot that is going to make 90%+ of the shots they take, has a good intake, and isn't afraid to play some defense, a midfielder that is able to transition from assisting to defense on the fly, and an inbounder that can quickly pass the ball to the midfielder as well as play a bit of D or throw some picks for the midfielder to get away from defense to execute the pass.

Two high scoring robots is the flashy alliance that looks great on paper but unless they can transition into those defensive roles on the fly they're not going to stand up to the above alliance. I don't think you will see examples of more brutal defense than what we saw in the CVR finals. If you can't counter that with equally effective defense of your own, or counter defense to free up your front court robot, you're in a world of hurt.

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery (Post 1356552)

Over a sufficiently large sample, a team's value to an average alliance should become clear with OPR/CCWM, though.

Originally Posted by Michael Hill (Post 1356474)

I'd like to see an OPR justification for why 254 chose 973 and 2135 at CVR.

Originally Posted by Jared Russell (Post 1356591)

Maybe for an average qualifications alliance, but not for an average eliminations alliance. Many useful robot attributes cannot be demonstrated in every qualification match due to random alliance pairings. Examples:

1. A great defensive robot doesn't have a big impact in matches where the other alliance would not have been scoring a lot of points anyway.

2. Catching robots require someone to provide a controlled truss shot.

3. Inbounders and assisters require someone to inbound to/assist to.

In each, case, OPR/CCWM will tend to systemically underrate these attributes since they are only utilized in a subset of qualification matches and (in most cases) will have their dependencies met in elims. High goal scorers and truss shooters can manufacture pretty good scores by themselves and are therefore comparatively overrated by OPR/CCWM.

Originally Posted by JTEarley (Post 1356816)

Anyone know of an app I can get to view this on android? I've tried Office suite but it never loads all the way. Any suggestions?

Originally Posted by Navid Shafa (Post 1356819)

Spyder has both OPR and OPR predictions per event. It's nothing fancy, but you might like that.

Originally Posted by Karthik (Post 1356788)

Teams that consistently play on high scoring alliances will continue to get a higher OPR. Thus, teams who are very good at facilitating alliance partners, (Strong inbounding, passing, catching, etc) will eventually rise to the top.

Originally Posted by David8696 (Post 1356873)

In defense of OPR this year, I'd like to look at the data—that is, how accurately OPR has predicted teams' performances in the competitions we've seen thus far. Here are the top 10 teams as ranked by OPR, accompanied by their finishes in the competition they competed in.

1. 1114—Finalist at Greater Toronto East regional (lost finals partly due to technical foul by alliance partner)
2. 2485—Finalist at San Diego regional(also lost finals partly due to tech foul)
3. 3683—Finalist at Greater Toronto East (alliance partner with 1114)
4. 33—Winner of Southfield district event
5. 987—Finalist at San Diego (alliance partner with 2485)
6. 624—Winner of Alamo regional
7. 16—Winner of Arkansas regional
8. 254—Winner of Central Valley regional
9. 3147—Finalist at Crossroads regional
10. 3393—Finalist at Auburn Mountain district

In fact, the top OPR team that didn't make at least finals in their respective regional/district event is 3494 at 12th, followed by 3476 in 13th (whose pickup broke during semifinals at San Diego). Overall, only five of the top 30 teams failed to make the finals, and only two failed to make the semifinals of at least one event. As a robotics and statistics nerd, I think these numbers speak for themselves: OPR may not be a perfect metric, but it seems pretty dang accurate at predicting whether a team will finish well.

Originally Posted by Kevin Sheridan (Post 1356874)

1114 and 3683 lost in the semifinals

Originally Posted by David8696 (Post 1356875)

My mistake. But I feel like the message holds true—OPR has predicted with fairly good accuracy the success of a team.

Originally Posted by David8696 (Post 1356873)

In defense of OPR this year, I'd like to look at the data—that is, how accurately OPR has predicted teams' performances in the competitions we've seen thus far. Here are the top 10 teams as ranked by OPR, accompanied by their finishes in the competition they competed in.

1. 1114—Semifinalist at Greater Toronto East regional (lost in semifinals partly due to technical foul by alliance partner)
2. 2485—Finalist at San Diego regional (also lost finals partly due to tech foul)
3. 3683—Semifinalist at Greater Toronto East (alliance partner with 1114)
4. 33—Winner of Southfield district event
5. 987—Finalist at San Diego (alliance partner with 2485)
6. 624—Winner of Alamo regional
7. 16—Winner of Arkansas regional
8. 254—Winner of Central Valley regional
9. 3147—Finalist at Crossroads regional
10. 3393—Finalist at Auburn Mountain district

In fact, the top OPR team that didn't make at least finals in their respective regional/district event is 3494 at 12th, followed by 3476 in 13th (whose pickup broke during semifinals at San Diego). Overall, only seven of the top 30 teams failed to make the finals, and only two failed to make the semifinals of at least one event. As a robotics and statistics nerd, I think these numbers speak for themselves: OPR may not be a perfect metric, but it seems pretty dang accurate at predicting whether a team will finish well.

EDIT: 1114 and 3683 lost in the semifinals. Thanks to Kevin Sheridan for pointing that out.

Originally Posted by Michael Hill (Post 1356886)

but for the midrange, where OPR would actually be useful, it falls apart.

Originally Posted by Bryce2471 (Post 1356837)

Karthik,
Again, I completely agree. But i'm just wondering if in general, a team could get a high OPR more easily by going to a more competitive event?

Originally Posted by Jared Russell (Post 1356855)

The first statement is of course true, but the coupling of catching, assisting, and defense with other robots' actions means that very capable facilitators may not frequently and consistently play on high scoring alliances, regardless of the number of matches. (How many triple assist cycles have you seen remain uncompleted because the scorer kept missing and ran out of time?) It all depends on the distribution of robot capabilities at the event. A given team's event OPR/CCWM is conditioned based on this distribution, a result of OPR's assumed linear scoring model being fit to the game's non-linear and dependent scoring functions. (Hence, OPRs between events are not really comparable unless the distribution of robot capabilities is similar).

Originally Posted by Michael Hill (Post 1356895)

We've also seen that you shouldn't even rely on OPR for your pick list. So I ask again, what are you actually getting out of OPR? What advantage do you have over others by looking at OPR vs just the qualification rankings?

Originally Posted by efoote868 (Post 1356909)

In short, filtering. I can use OPR to rank teams, and then I can scrutinize the teams on the threshold of the top tier to save myself effort from having to look at every team.

This is significant for individuals or small teams that lack man hours to devote to scouting.

Originally Posted by ErvinI (Post 1356917)

Has anyone done an Adjusted Contribution to Winning Margin analysis?

Originally Posted by Michael Hill (Post 1356915)

Unfortunately when you do that, you'll be setting yourself up for failure. You want to choose the robots that will best pair with your particular set of skills. Those robots could very well be misrepresented by OPR. As mentioned previously, look at 254's selections at CVR. They chose robots that are very compatible with their style of play even though they were near the vey bottom in OPR.

Originally Posted by sailer99 (Post 1356888)

Please watch the matches before judging that 1114 and 3683 lost due to a technical foul.

Originally Posted by efoote868 (Post 1356938)

No one is arguing against that strategy, but not every team has the 'Poofs resources to implement it.

If you recognize that OPR is a tool just like a hammer is a tool, it isn't hard to see that it has practical uses with definite limitations. I wouldn't, and pretty much everyone that understands OPR wouldn't use it to strictly pick an alliance, but when you need to quickly fasten two pieces of wood together it's hard to beat a hammer and a nail.

Originally Posted by David8696 (Post 1356873)

...(lost in semifinals partly due to technical foul by alliance partner)...

Originally Posted by Michael Hill (Post 1356474)

I'd like to see an OPR justification for why 254 chose 973 and 2135 at CVR. Until then, I'd much rather rely on actual scouting data for real performance evaluation. This game has more facets to it than usual, and there are more ways of scoring points. Previously, points were mostly scored by putting something into a goal. This year, many more things have to be done to get points (and a win). This year is all about choosing compatible robots, not just ones who can put points on the board by themselves. 973 was second to last in OPR at Central Valley, but does that mean that they didn't perform well? Sure, the top teams that can put sick points up are going to bubble to the top, but after about 20-30 teams (overall), it's a big jumble. Isn't it the teams after 20-30 the ones you really care about?

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson (Post 1357308)

If you're going to put that sort of disclaimer on data that doesn't support the thesis, you probably ought to mention those teams whose wins were partly due to fouls committed by opponents. My preference would be to just leave off the commentary and let people look at the raw data without prejudice.