Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

This game isn't that bad. It's not my favorite but still a good game.

Fouls have always had the potential to drastically change the match outcome, it's just more frequent this year.

This game was designed so that there really can't be one good team to carry an alliance. You need to be cooperative and work together or you won't get very far. While one bot can hurt you, it doesn't guarantee a loss. If you are a decent team just have the weaker robot touch the ball then take it yourselves if you have to.

My team is very strategic and this year we have excelled because we are the way. All in all the season is almost over anyway

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

From the perspective of a scouter/mascot:

First of all, I like scouting this game. Our paradigm is "follow the ball", and we have two scouters per alliance. Previous games have been hard too scout due to too many game pieces, but that is probably because our team has very little man power available to be applied to scouting. The game is fun to watch and exciting, if you've read the rules (which I have many times).

As a strategist, I LOVE this game. There is a lot of depth to the field, and several different "classes" of robots, at least in MAR. In order to do well, everyone has to work together, and teams have to know their niche. It makes me happy when a strategy is well executed, even if it isn't the one I came up with. It frustrates me to no end when one robot on our alliance decides to go "lone wolf" and doesn't work as a team.

Basically, it boils down to this. In qualifications, most robots are out for themselves and for rank, so they are more likely to abandon strategies. This is when we get train-wreck matches that look like pee-wee soccer.
In eliminations, its the most intense game I've ever been a part of. (I joined FIRST in the offseason of logomotion)

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

What I love about this game is the exciting matches come eliminations

At Oklahoma there were definitely some "better than others" robots, but there were no powerhouse teams and the alliances were very very well balanced.

In 90% of the eliminations, the score was down-to-the-wire, and the near upset of the #8 seed on the #1 seed were the 2 best matches I have ever seen in my life.

While I was actually disappointed with the lack of penalties (you heard it here), the fact that the game was more relaxed made the scores feel earned and the close matches were actually due to real close gameplay, not a free 50 points tying the game at the last second

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

That on is on the margins. G27 I think would be the rule in question. It would have to be seen as intentional for that to apply though. The actual entanglement is not shown. It would depend on who was pushing who & if blues appendage was inside its frame perimeter when the entanglement happened, as it looks like it might well have been.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

I've gotta say, the eliminations at Greater DC were probably the most intense thing I've ever experienced at a regional FRC event. The standard of play was absolutely fantastic, and the game allows for so much more strategic depth than previous FRC games.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

I won't say that my "patience is completely gone" but I tend to agree...I inspected at Palmetto, and my team attended NC and DC. From one perspective, the gameplay has seemed to degrade throughout the season. It can still be a very exciting game in eliminations, but it is too easy for a match to become a frustrating battle to avoid defense. This is my opinion, of course, but I believe the games are much better when an increasing level of game play is synonymous with increased elegance, finesse, and technical expertise. Too many matches in the elimination rounds become one power house alliance shutting down the offense of the other by blockade. The elimination matches I saw earlier in the season seemed to have quicker, more spectacular scoring cycles...often deciding a match at the buzzer by a two or three assist goal...at the end, there are far fewer of these and many more struggles to break the blockade and score.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

Case in point, watch this video and tell me how exactly we were assessed a 50 pt technical at :17 into the video. We are in the process of scoring our missed autonomous ball and being defended against.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/bfyolu2f7...0match%201.AVI

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

I disagree that scoring-only games are fundamentally better. For one, they effectively prevent participation by rookie robots that can barely do more than drive; that's not particularly conducive to inspiring those teams and keeping them in the organization. Moreover, lack of defense quite simply means lack of strategic depth in this game - there is no point to do anything other than three-assist cycle as fast as you possibly can if the other robots don't do anything to stop you. I think seeing alliances forced to adapt and overcome stiff defense is far more exciting that watching which of two noninteracting teams can perform a task the fastest.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

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.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

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

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

It is not immediately clear that that is a "pin." There seem to be several points where the robots try to disentangle themselves.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

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

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

It definitely feels like blue should have had a pinning penalty there, considering their intake was extended for no apparent reason.

What was also lacking from the video was any sort of pinning count, which is a precursor to the calls.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

Thank you for articulating much of what I liked about the game without me realizing that's what it was!

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

I like this game and I think it is exciting.

Because of the magnitude of the fouls it is made over-emotional. When our students complain to us mentors about a scoring issue after the game we point them to the question box. If they are shy we take them to it, then stand nearby. Sure us mentors are just as involved, we are on their side and will support them, but for us this is a chance for us to help our students be more assertive. Taking the kids to the refs was considered mentors approaching the refs at a recent venue and we were later sternly warned in the pit area. We assured them this was not our intent but at the same time they considered our teams forward approach to the refs was challenging their 'decisions which were final'. How true. In our 3 years we have never once had a decision over turned or a possibly uncredited opponent foul considered so I wonder why we still bother. We are human.

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...

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.

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.

That is all I have to say about the 2014 games. We actually had fun. A fond farewell and good luck to all our friends still standing. Volunteers we still love ya. I bid you all adieu.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

Blue had red up against the barrier for much longer than 5 seconds. The ref was failing to count the pin. Of course Blue was entangled, but given the calls this year, blue should have pulled away from the side to avoid the pin call--that didn't happen. It's very difficult to imagine that red which had the ball had engaged with blue while blue had its mechanism down--it almost certainly happened the other way around.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

Also, fouls (or goals) can sometimes happen just as the buzzer is sounding. The ref tablets automatically lock out five seconds after the match ends, so we sometimes have to get the scorekeeper to enter these "buzzer beaters" manually after the fact.

It might help clarify things to explain my own process. Other head refs might have different systems, but this is what I do: during the match, the refs radio fouls to me as they happen. I make a quick note for each of them in my notebook. As a check at the end of the match, I'll tally up the number of fouls and tech fouls I recorded in my notebook and compare it to what the scorekeeper has on his screen. If they match, great. If they don't, I talk to the refs to figure out the reason for the discrepancy. Refs are human, and this year's game is intense. Occasionally, it'll happen that - for instance - a ref accidentally hits the foul button instead of the tech foul button. In these cases where there's a discrepancy, I confirm what the fouls should be and get the scorekeeper to adjust them if necessary.

We strive to be accurate during the match, but if a mistake is made, my approach is that it's better to catch it and fix it than to let it go.

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.

When it comes right down to it, you aren't going to ever be sure that fouls won't be added on at the end. Even when everything's working perfectly, there's still a chance of a tech foul right at the end of the game that suddenly shifts the score by a large margin.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

I don't how how this might work, I typically am pretty focused on my teams robot and the areas directly around our robot. It has been shown multiple times that six refs with tablets can't accurately keep track of which balls are auto balls, fouls, or assists. Nothing against them, this is an impressively difficult game to referee. But if they can't do it consistently as a team, how is a coach going to manage it while coaching too?

I showed this game to my friend who officiates football games and every question he had was about how the refs could possibly keep up with all of it.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

Fair enough.

The refs aren't actually keeping track of all this. Not directly, anyhow. A lot of it is built into the ref tablets and the field management system. For auto balls vs. balls in the cycle, the tablets switch modes when the last auto ball is scored. The refs don't actually track assists directly - they just punch in possessions as they happen and the FMS does the computation to figure out how many assists those possessions work out to.

But you do raise a good point: the refs have the benefit of a screen in front of them showing how many auto balls are remaining on the field for whichever alliance they're tracking. Without that, I can understand how someone could lose track of whether they're on their last ball from auto or their first cycle, especially if they're focused on just one robot. Judging by the number of teams I've seen try to score truss points with an auto ball, I guess that sort of confusion happens a lot. :)

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

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.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

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.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much
 

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.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much
 

Better quit FIRST, then.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

Teams are already rewarded for winning the alliance lottery. The issue I have is teams essentially ignoring their fully functional alliance partners to do everything themselves. Even a box bot can get an assist, but there were multiple times I saw human players ignore their partners and wait for their own bot to get to them.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

I, like many, have been reluctant to jump into this conversation - but finally decided to add my two cents:

While all FIRST games have a measure of dependence on good qualifier alliances, this one was extreme because of the one ball at a time feature. The damage done to an entire alliance by one robot that took forever to perform their part of the cycle was typically not reparable. And because the opposing alliance only needed one robot to control the ball at any given time it was too easy to deploy the other two on the one good robot.

I think the game needed a mid-field protected zone, or a protected travel strip along the borders to make it possible for a good robot on a bad alliance to generate some offense.

Unrelated to my central point - I think the catch should have been valued much higher relative to the truss (throw). That could have significantly changed the dynamic as well.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

I agree completely with all of your other points but disagree with this one point. (A) Many if not most of the major foul points have been accrued by human players, thus nullifying thousands of man hours which an entire team has devoted to the construction of the robot, not to mention the strategic planning of the game play.
(B) At the two regionals we've attended I (along with hundreds of others I'm sure) thought I'd pop a blood vessel in my head from screaming for the human player (on our alliance) to "JUST INBOUND THE BALL!!!". There were MANY times when a human player ambled over to input the ball or held on to it until the absolute perfect positioning of the receiving robot. In one of our matches he remained behind the driver station getting caught up in the action on the other side of the field while we were waiting for the inbound. --WAY TOO MUCH input/game control on the human player this year. Hopefully this never happens again. A single human player has adversely affected many dozens of match outcomes this year--and that translates into not just affecting his team, good or bad, but the entire 6 teams on the field and, ultimately the overall standings of all teams in the competition.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

Thats not the games fault though. Train your human players better and get on other teams' human players to run and inbound quickly. These are things that can be fixed, they are not faults with the game (however I do agree with your point about how many slow/incompetent human players there are this year).

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

We enjoyed the game this year and it was fun to play. The only thing bad was that we kept being paired up with broken robots. We were the only functional robot on our alliance most of the time.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

Exactly. The game itself is really good and introduces a very new style of gameplay to FRC, but at the same time the game is extremely subjective and there are grey areas in many of the most basic rules. Some of the poor reffing is caused by how different referees interpret the rules. At midwest, we found that inbounding from the human player on one side of the field almost always resulted in a foul from the referee on that side, whereas inbounding from the other side was fine.

This certainly isn't the only instance of this occurring, either. At crossroads, my team had a qualifier against many of the best robots at the event and we ended up winning because of 150 foul points. Although it is a little amusing to be on the receiving end of this issue, it certainly did screw over a couple of great robots.

Coming from a second year lead scouter, a lot of teams either don't scout, or do really bad scouting. This should be especially evident with this year's game where certain things are very confusing to track (we actually had to write up definitions for "low-goal attempt" and "floor pass").

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

More on the topic of the game itself, I absolutely love it. No other game has ever been as effective in displaying FIRST's theme of coopertition, and it presents an entirely new style of play that has never been seen before. In games past, an awesome robot could carry their entire alliance without a problem. This year's game makes carrying next to impossible. Instead of 6 robots in colored bumpers scoring points individually, there are two clearly defined alliances playing the game together, in a group effort to score. Compared to previous games, strategies are extremely varied, and can be really unique. That is what makes this game really special, and if penalties weren't so bad, I would argue that this is by far the best game in the history of FRC.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

Coopertition in this game would be great, if true alliances during quals were to actually work.

I joke about this sometimes with friends, but deep down I know it's not funny. There may be matches where teams with kitbots or a functionally limited robot can be told by their alliance partners to either disregard their own strategy or not have any input into how a match should go.

I'm sure there's been occasions this season where a team may tell another "Get of our way, don't mess things up". That's something that isn't inspiring and doesn't help this game's case.

This has been said multiple times before, but conceptually FIRST did a good job with this game. Somewhere between concept and actually implementing and executing this game it got all weird and the game is poor on that front.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

I'm all for training HPs, my own and my allies' (no fouls yet, knock on wood). That said, I think we sometimes forget who these HPs are. Some of them are fantastic, smart, Johnny-on-the-spot players that work this game like variety athletes. And some are good kids that just freeze or crack under the pressure. They stand with a ball for 20 seconds and the entire stadium screams at them. I've lost track of how many times I've seen this, not to mention other errors. It's frustrating for all parties, but I can't imagine what it's like for the HP. I feel terrible about what's happened to some well-meanig kids this year.

I don't know how some teams pick their HPs, and while I personally would want to spare someone of that, I understand there must be other considerations that get them out there in the first place. Yes, HPs have always been able to ruin matches for their alliance, but usually it's harder and less public than this. I know the mistakes aren't on the GDC, but the publicity of it is painful. At least in Lunacy people understood how important and difficult the role was.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

This game puts to much in the refs interpretation of the rules. This plus the fact the the fouls this year are so large that if you get 1 it is hard enough to come back let alone multiple. This year we have seen multiple calls made against us or not against others while the very next match the same thing will happen and we get penalized for it. At the western Canada regional we were given a 50 point foul for high speed ramming and intentional damage of another robot on the field. In this call we did go across the field and hit a dead robot bumping them. This robot though was on our alliance and also the hit was much less violent than many of the hits we had given out before. Finally to top it all off, the intentional damage seen by the ref was from the clear plastic cover off our pneumatic gauge. This was shown to the ref who said he did not see it as we had when he was clearly shown where the piece had come from. Also as clearly shown in this game. Every team no matter how good can be ruined by a human player who doesn't know the rules. In the same match as above we did 3 cycles each one the human player cross little line. After the first i told him to watch his hands and he just smiled at me. There is also a ton of error in the calling of assists and also on the reset, we waited for almost 20 seconds on the light up for a new ball. There is to much left to interpretation in this years game. Last year the rules were definitive. Either you did something or you didn't. It had no maybe. For the amount of money all the teams put in to do this. Either the game creators need to be able to think ahead to see potential issues with their game or make more decisive rules which are easily interpreted.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

Probably already been said but:
1. I hate that the tie-breaker points(assist and auto points to name a few) are scored for each team on an alliance basis(our team would get the points for the whole alliance).
2. One great robot will not outscore three semi-competent robots.
3. The lower seeded alliances at the regional level(if they scouted correctly), have a better chance of putting together alliances that can do 3 assist cycles than the higher seeds do just due to the quality of bots by the time the selection gets back to the higher seeds(other than our case at Chesapeake)

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much
 

Looking back on our experiences this season... We actually had more success involving low capability robots in the offensive part of the game than we ever have had in the past. You'll see several examples of wall press assists that are closely controlled by our robot in the following GoPro Montage. You'll also see some shots of us directly spitting into another robot. Sometimes we refer to the robot as the "Mother Bird" regurgitating worms for the youngins.

All in all, I think this game has done an excellent job of asking alliance partners to work together. There is still plenty of luck in the alliance pairings, but as long as a robot can drive, we found a way to use them.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

3 assist cycles, who needs em?
http://youtu.be/lFN73SVZr6o

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

http://watchfirstnow.com/archives/88598727

Week one. ;)

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

Sometimes giving the ball to a box robot will take too much time from the cycle, rendering it inefficient. However, if the alliance is full of robots that all work well and in a timely manner, then shame on a team for ignoring that. Our general strategy is to see how the first cycle ends up, then adjust strategy from there.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

I didn't know little kid soccer was the perfect way to describe bad matches until now. Thank you for enlightening me this is fantastic

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

One thing I have noticed in my travels to FIRST competition is you can tell a good team from a poor team is how well the human player is trained. Good teams make sure the human player understands the rules and do everything to a teams chances of victory. Bad teams human players do not understand the rules (If they are asking volunteers before the match "What do I do?" that is a very bad sign) do not have a sense of urgency and seem commit alot of penalties. A human player may not win you a match but they can sure lose you one and there is no excuse to have a bad one if you take the time to train one by having them read and understand the rules and teach them simple tactics to avoid penalties (G40 can be avoided by pinning your elbows to your side when you pitch the ball out).

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

^ While pinning elbows to the side while being a HP does not feel natural in anyway whatsoever and I think G40 can be unreasonable at times, it's the way it has to go if you don't want to be blasted by G40 penalties.

I wonder how my former team's drive coach would've been if our human player made some silly mistakes. Granted this was all their 1st year behind the glass.

This is the way it's always been since auto / coopertition / teleop / whatever points have been used as tiebreakers. It's just not practical to have refs keep track of which specific robot is scoring which points... it's hard enough to get the points for an alliance correct.

I suppose you could use some form of OPR solution to solve for team contributions, once all the matches were complete, but you'd have no accurate way to track tiebreaker rankings until then.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

Attended Midwest, a Week 6 event. On Friday, right before matches started, a student asked one of our adults "What does the human player do?" Later found out that our human player was asked to explain the basics of the role to at least two different teams on Friday. I'm sure this was not an isolated incident for our team or the volunteers.

Then on Saturday (Day 2 of a Week 6 event) in what I believe were teams' 11th or 12th quals matches I observed:

• Human player being instructed from stands where she needed to locate herself. She stood outside the box and immediately got a penalty.
• Human player being instructed by an alliance partner where the human player needed to stand. Student did not move to the box. Eventually his own mentor gently pushed him down the sideline and he walked slowly to the human player box as the match started. No one noticed and he did not get a penalty.
• Two human players occupying the same human player box for the duration of the match, leaving the box on the opposite side of the field empty.
• Another entire match played without a human player in one of the human player zones. This time no one doubled up though. No idea where the third human player was.

Unfortunate for students to find themselves in these situations as they could easily be avoided.

Some teams bring bumper supplies and build bumpers for rookie and other teams. Perhaps a few teams could also "build human players" on practice day - just checking in with teams to make sure they have someone assigned the role and understand the basics of the role. Certainly should be on teams' pre-match checklists - Do your alliance partners have a human player? Do they at least understand where to stand? Something we'll discuss during prep for next season.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

To add on to the post above of bad human playing, I also saw a coach inbound the ball when he realized that there was no human player in the inbound area, but then I also noticed another teams human player acting as a second coach for his team. I don't understand how either team could do that if they even looked at the rules once.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

So no one gets too confused, this isn't actually illegal. I've considered it as a way of training other HPs in practice matches. I'm not sure of any uses other than that, but they can pass to each other within the island as well. There's also nothing that prevents an alliance station human player (or even one of the many animatedly-gesticulating island HPs) from offering coach-like advice to theirs or another team.

That said, I've reffed events where is seems like fully half or more of the HPs don't have a clue what they're doing the first time they come out. If I had a nickle for every "so what do I do?" question right before auto starts (and a penny for every delayed start, and a dime for every "where do I stand?", and a dollar for every mid-match "can I throw this in?"*...) By my count, I'd be uniquely rich this year vis-a-vis the rest of my reffing history. Haven't figured out why yet.

*"You can correctly re-enter an out of bounds ball whenever you think it's appropriate." "...So, Now?" "...Whenever you want" "...But now?" "...Wheneveryouwant(!)" ..."uhh" ...Well, not now, the match is over.

As I said, stressful for all parties.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

True. I just cannot figure out why you would use that approach during an actual match - training makes a lot of sense, but a live match not so much. Leaving a zone empty opens up even more chaos if a ball is ejected in that area and field reset has no one to give the game piece too.

Another tip, for teams with decorative accessories - be sure to make sure they are fastened securely to your human player (or removed entirely). One human player got bonked by a game piece and his toy hat almost fell into the field of play. Pretty sure that would have been a foul.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

After our 2nd event where we were easily one of the top 5 offensive-style robots, I'm mixed about this game. If your partners are bad - literally won't push the ball right in front of their robot - your match is toast. The main offensive robot will get double-teamed by defenders, effectively making the match won or lost by autonomous & defense.

It's also quite the p.i.t.a. when teams who are pretty good have different philosophies on how the game is "supposed" to be played (triple-assist vs double-assist+defender) when either is a viable option against the right opponents.

All in all ref'ing was much better in Week 6.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

To be fair I've witnessed Stupid Human Player Tricks other years. My all time favorite was the 2010 GTR West when a rookie team human player was manning the trident and received several balls while standing outside the player zone. A ref was watching him the whole time and gave him a penalty for every ball he received. After about five or six he walked up behind the kid and nudged him back into the player station and went back to watching the field. After the match the team removed the student from being human player and made him driver instead.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

Wouldn't it be more advantageous for teams to be able to implement different playing philosophies?

The floor of robot ability for this game is a contributing factor to the drop in quality in my opinion, for situations that you described.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

When you're opponent can break 200, then you need 3-assist cycles. Watch SVR Final 1-1 and watch us rapidly close the gap on 971/254/1662, just missing catching them after missing an auto shot.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

Here is a link to the match:
http://www.thebluealliance.com/match/2014casj_f1m1

1678/368/4171 played excellent defense and forced our alliance to drop points on our cycles throughout the match. On the first cycle we lose out on 20 points when 4171 blocks 1662 from inbounding. On the second cycle we lost out on 10 points because 1678 and 368 played excellent defense on 971 and prevented them from trussing. For the third cycle, the stellar counter defense from 1678 dragged both 254 and 971 into a corner to try to stop 368, causing us to miss another 20 point assist. The most amazing thing is that 1678/368/4171 remained patient and continued to gather 3 assist cycles while playing defense, allowing them to catch up over the course of the whole match. There were amazing plays from the blue alliance in this close match. The fluid transitions from offense to defense and back from both 1678 and 368 were a scary sight to see.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

I wonder if FIRST is trying to gently(?) nudge the "powerhouse" teams towards improving the general level of play, which really is shockingly low at a lot of regionals. 254 got the Gracious Professionalism award at SVR largely for, according to the speech, spending a great deal of time in the pits helping other teams. While I'm not questioning their motives, this probably helped them as well, given that they had a very good robot and could then expect better partners in their matches. Obviously improving the overall level of FRC by a significant amount takes a lot longer than a weekend, but....

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

I posted earlier on this thread that I thought this was the intent of FIRST, but that they could have implemented it more smoothly so as not to catch the more experienced teams off guard. With a little forethought, the play level could have been lifted prior to the build season, instead of trying to catch up after the first Saturday in January.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

Thanks much for the complement. In the end of course, it still wasn't enough. Congrats on a great regional.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

I originally did not like the game because it was so much different from all the other games. Here, teamwork is required for points, not just recommended. Before, each robot could operate individually scoring points on their own to add to a team score. This year, robots have to pass to each other to get the most amount of points possible.

Lots of teams who usually create really good "lone wolf" robots did not like this game because they had to rely on their teammates to win. They no longer could have all the glory to themselves.

Strategy and alliance selections are even more important this year because robots need to work well together. An in-bounder, trusser, and scorer are all needed to have the most reliable and highest scoring alliance. Because of this strategy, this is my new favorite game.

This year there is no endgame either. Last year there was the pyramid climb, and the year before the bridge balance. This year: nothing. While this is not a huge issue, it is still a downside.

One more after-the-fact problem is that too many robots look the same. It is hard to go to an event and see a unique robot.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

I have to admit that this game can be a little bit less interesting then other games, but I don't think that it is bad. It's a little bit more difficult to show off to sponsors and non invested FIRST members because it is a little bit less comprehensive than other games.

I also entirely understand the G27 updated, but I saw it being called quite often at different events. It just seems annoying that so many deciding factors in games were fouls. Most of the time the fouls were in my favor, but it took away from the overall importance of offensive action and cycling.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

I guess part of that can be attributed to the Build Blitz/ RI3D things, but I don't necessarily think that's bad.

Obviously with the rules design convergence isn't as major a thing in FIRST as it is with platforms like VEX and FTC, but teams do adapt.

If FIRST wants to not so lightly encourage (read: "mandate") teams to assist other teams so that the floor at regionals isn't as bad as it is as times, I think it needs to be done better than this.

I fully believe FIRST can make those improvements for whatever game they do next year. And I don't think the floor at Championships will be entirely awful.

I do miss that feeling of being able to work solo and still do somewhat well, however.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

We (1551) got the Gracious Professionalism Award at FLR largely for spending a great deal of time in the pits helping other teams--several of which later kicked our asses on the field.

We didn't try to earn an award, we just did what we assume every other team would do, and what many teams have done for us when we needed help. I'm certain--CERTAIN--that the Poofs were not trying to win an award, and were not trying to increase their own chances of winning.

You know what's awesome? When teams who sink so much time, effort, and energy into the game can at least compete on the field. You know what sucks? When they can't. So when you have the opportunity to help them compete, you do it, because it's the right thing to do. It has nothing whatsoever to do with this metagame or anything else.