Originally Posted by Citrus Dad (Post 1367474)

Note that regardless blue is pinning red, but not assessed a penalty. I understand the entire audience was yelling for a foul...

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad (Post 1367474)

Note that regardless blue is pinning red, but not assessed a penalty. I understand the entire audience was yelling for a foul...

Originally Posted by FrankJ (Post 1367494)

At that point they were entangled. Blue was incapable of pulling away. Or when they did, red followed ending the pin.

Originally Posted by AllenGregoryIV (Post 1367225)

I want to talk a little about what the GDC did well in Aerial Assist.

The low goals in this game are the best I have ever seen. Scoring in the low goal can be accomplished by a kit bot with ease. They don't have too many false positive, most of the time when the ball enters the goal it stays in. This game would be much worse with out such a simple way to end the cycle. Low goals in the past have basically only been touched during field setup and take down (2012, 2013). This is a very good thing, we are seeing far fewer under 10 point alliance scores. There are still some but not nearly as many as in previous years. We had problems with our launcher at our first event and we were still able to win a lot of matches by using the low goal effectively. In previous years if your shooter wasn't working, you were just out of luck.

Simple way to score in auton, the mobility bonus is a good idea. It's clean and simple and rewards teams for the effort of making an autonomous even if it doesn't work. For many teams just getting driver control is difficult allowing a simple challenge is excellent for those teams.

Truss vs. High Goal - Having two ways to earn points that are very similar but differ in their accuracy requirements is a very good concept. This allows teams that can build a launcher but not one that is as accurate to still have a valuable role. It's sort of like the 2-point goal from last year except you're able to get maximum points per game piece. In 2013 you were at a big disadvantage if you weren't shooting in to the high goal, truss specialists this year are far more useful then 2-point goal scorers last year.

No End Game - I actually really like this. It allows teams to build higher quality robots since they don't have to spread themselves to thin. There wasn't a need to reserve weight or motors for a mechanism that is only used in the last 15 seconds of the match. The last second truss shots and goals are more intense then climbs last year. Points swings in the last second can be up to 40 points. You also get last second defense which we haven't really had in the past for risk of big penalties. This is the same type of drama you see at the end of a good basketball game.

Human player role - I have never liked the idea of human players (and I was one for two years in HS) but I think this is the best implementation we have ever had. They don't get to score points directly but they can have a big impact on matches. The human players have to work well with the robots to get efficient cycles. And we are off the trend of having them heave full court shots at the end of matches. Though they did have a impact on a few matches in 2012 and 2013, I don't think that aspect really made the games any better.

This game absolutely has problems, but the GDC did some innovative things and some of them have made for a better game.

Originally Posted by FrankJ (Post 1367494)

At that point they were entangled. Blue was incapable of pulling away. Or when they did, red followed ending the pin.

Originally Posted by Hoover (Post 1367676)

I did have one thing cleared up - that of evaporating points. As most of you probably know (but naive me did not), our fouls are being added to the opponents score (or vice-verse) in real time during the match. However, after the match, in the refs huddle, fouls are then fluctuating, coming into existence, going out of existence, or changing value. For example a 50 point foul that had your alliance ahead during the match might be re-evaluated to a 20 point foul now putting the alliance behind. We have learned the hard way to never stop adding points to your score, hardly ever try to rely on denying your opponents goal in the last minute if you are ahead as your sole means of winning. But in a pinch...

Originally Posted by Hoover (Post 1367676)

However, that being said, in the heat of a match it is incredibly hard to know how much of your score consists of foul points. Who's looking at that? You look up every 30 seconds if even that to view the score. As I told one alliance during qualifications, 'we need more points to stay a fouls width of winning'. If foul points were listed as a second number this would be very helpful.

Originally Posted by Hoover (Post 1367676)

There is no solution I know of to know if fouls are going to be added on at the end. The only caveat to that is, if there is an outstanding foul call known to the refs during teleop but no points have been added, at least have an indicator that it may happen as it will affect strategy.

Originally Posted by RallyJeff (Post 1367713)

I've never been a coach myself, but since this year's game only has one game piece per alliance (most of the time), is this something that the coach could track? If they're watching the ball anyhow, they might be able to keep a mental tally of trusses, catches, assists and goals as they happen.

It'd be a lot to keep track of, and I'm not sure how it fits in the rest of their workload, but that might be a possibility.

Originally Posted by MrBasse (Post 1367726)

I don't how how this might work, I typically am pretty focused on my teams robot and the areas directly around our robot.

Originally Posted by KGenson (Post 1369732)

Okay, having gone through a second regional, I'm definitely the line that this game is a good idea that was terribly executed. The refs were completely overwhelmed, and we actually lost a match because a possession wasn't counted. Not that it really mattered in the end, but it's incredibly frustrating to have your last match end on such a sour note.

The subjective nature of the game also makes ranking by win/loss a complete joke. I think FIRST should have made Assist points the primary determining factor for ranking, and then made win/loss a tiebreaker. In spite of the name there wasn't a lot of assisting going on during the qualifiers, with far too many teams just taking the ball and playing it themselves.

Still a lot of fun to watch though, especially in eliminations.

Originally Posted by DampRobot (Post 1369768)

After competing in our second regional with a bot that could actually play, I never again want to play a game where qualification matches are essentially a test of who got luckier with their partners.

Originally Posted by Dunngeon (Post 1369767)

I would argue that making the game scored primarily with assists would further the dependence on a good alliance in Qualifying. Some teams (not always the best) would get lucky and have a good alliance where all 3 robots work. Or you could have a bad schedule where none of your alliance robots work, your robot carries the match and you would still lose because you have no assist points.

With assists, this game is already very dependent on your teammates working. Making assists the primary method of scoring for seeding would incorrectly reward teams for winning the proverbial lottery and having good alliances.