Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

Time/Difficulty vs Point Reward is my primary focus. 2010 is the most obvious case of Difficulty/Point Reward being crazy out of whack. Suspensions were rare because it was often worth more to keep scoring than take the time to line up a suspension and risk the damage to another robot.

2011 is another pretty obvious scoring whack up wherein the rack didn't matter nearly as much as the minibots.

Please note that these assertions are primarily true for 90% of FRC teams. Obviously 254's 6 second climb was crazy but they were one out of 3k teams to do that. Most other 30 point climbers took close to 2 minutes to ascend.


This year the big thing woulda been the penalty points as compared to the match scores. Even our no defense analysis showed that a 50 point penalty would be massive. Factoring in that defense can usually halve optimal that 50 point tech foul was high on our list of "things to avoid" (I think it was shortly behind 'ejecting the battery').

Coupling the difficulty in scoring (as compared to years like 2008/2012 where teams could score points merely by being mobile) with high foul points should have been able to show the GDC that a disproportionate number of matches would be decided by fouls even at high levels of play. [insert Ether here to back up the exact number or elim matches decided by fouls]

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

I think the game is improving every week. And when fouls don't taint the game, I love this game! It's high-octane, exciting, and suspenseful. It feels more like a "Varsity Sport".
When tricky fouls get involved, thats when this game gets ugly. I think most of us have gotten over the G40 foul and know how to avoid it, but things like inadvertent ball possession and extensions beyond the frame perimeter or beyond 20" mess with the spirit of the game.

But the game today is way better than the game from Week 1. The penalties are less frequent, the game is evolving in a complicated and strategically intense way, and the robots are becoming more consistent and more competitive.

I understand fully the frustrations of many teams involved in events so far. Losing out on the rest of a season you worked hard for is difficult, and sometimes deserving teams don't win when they maybe should.

I'm excited to see what these next few weeks of competition hold for everyone. And I certainly hope the problems with this game are resolved and don't hurt other teams down the road.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

To be clear: I LIKE this game. Its a neat concept, and when played well, its really cool to watch. HOWEVER: The rules make it UNPLAYABLE (depending on the refs). The day that ramming other robots is a tech foul, or when building a harvester results in tech fouls (over the bumper rule update 3-20-14), or when human player actions that DO NOT impact the match decide the match, this is the day that FRC becomes uninspiring. The GDC really punished teams that built offensive bots this year. The 3-20-14 rule update said that high speed ramming, even if undamaging results in a 50-point foul. How are refs supposed to call fouls that use wording like "if intentional", or "purposefully damaging"? The only way to harvest balls this year is by going over the bumper, but the 3-20-14 rule update removes protection for these assemblies, and makes it possible, no LIKELY that the pickup device will result in penalty calls.

This is the issue. The game is fine. Its the rules that are broken. The GDC seems like they don't want ANY defense played, yet they make rules that make defense the only viable option. People keep saying that they like how this game allows bad robots to beat good robots, and to that I say WHAT??????? How is that positive? Strong offensive bots should always beat mediocre or bad robots. If the GDC wanted the game to be an equalizer, they should have realized that the result would not be positive. Why would teams build good robots if a drivebase w/o any scoring potential beat them?

At RI this weekend, the refs called few penalties, only making calls on blatant fouls. This was nice, as it allowed scoring to be the focus, not avoiding fouls. However, we lost in the Finals because of a human player foul (he stepped outside the human player box after an amazing jump catch - we would have won by 8 points otherwise), and our robot breaking in the last match. 78 had a great alliance, and it was really close, but it kinda stinks to have games decided by actions that did not impact gameplay at all.

I hope everything I said makes sense, and I hope its clear that I like this game when its played clean. I too would like to know how many members of the GDC have EVER been on an FRC team, or if they have ever attended an event. The GDC needs to stop playing games with the rules.

Our team built probably our best robot ever this year. At both of our events this year, we have been finalists. Luckily for us, due to the new district model in NE, we still have a chance of going to champs. I hope the GDC figures out how to NOT punish GOOD teams for being GOOD.

/end rant

This ended up being a lot longer than I meant it to be, but its nice to get it off my chest. :o

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

I agree. At first, I wasn't a fan of the game, but now I love it. It's more like traditional sports, where teams of all skill level and experience can play and have fun, unlike previous games, which were hard for inexperienced teams to play. Watching elimination matches is very exciting, and is when the game really becomes fun to play. Most robots this year do the same thing, pick up the ball, then shoot, but it's still amazing to see how fast and accurate some of these teams are.

Lots of people have complained about the human player fouls. The foul rules have been always been here, and teams should have practiced throwing in the balls. It's not ridiculous to give teams a heavy penalty for reaching too far into the field. Compared to building a robot, keeping your hand away from a line is an easy task. It's the same story with possessing an opponents ball. It says in the manual that you need to be careful of this. The same applies with defense on an open field with no safe zones. Even if you don't think that a rule makes sense, a rule is a rule and will be enforced.

After watching week four, it seems like the G27 update that got everybody all upset isn't to stop defense, but to stop excessive robot damage and discourage teams from becoming extremely violent. It hasn't been called much, and it seems to be called only if the damage was caused by really violent ramming.

The only issues I see with the game are a few glitches on the field with the pedestal light, but these matches are usually replayed, which is a free match and extra driver practice for your team.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

Don't know what events you were watching, but G27 was all over lenape and tech fouls were falling from the sky some matches and not at all when they clearly should have been in others. The pedestal issues were almost nonexistent, though.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

The tricky thing with analysing the foul points is coupling the intent with the value. G40 is intended to scare people from ever putting their hands in danger (My personal grievance is that the human player zones have a back line - ie they are too small).

For the other TFs, I think some of them are out of whack on purpose. G14, TFG27, updated G28 are about ethical retribution/scare-forcing rather than balancing out strategic advantages.

"In game justice" is hard in FRC because the games are too short. Ideally there would be a ruleset like Ultimate Frisbee, which is designed to recreate the state of the game before the foul (read: not as a punishment), but in FRC that's near impossible. Using points, the penalty points, on average, have to make up the points lost because of the foul. But that often means situations are either under-penalised or over-penalised.

Take, for example, trying to determine an appropriate foul point for tipping. A team that is tipped loses the alliance some amount of points depending on the capabilities of the robot and the state of the game (namely, time left). How is it possible to derive one point value to cover all cases? This is why ridiculous "20 pt + 3rd level hang" foul happened last year for interfering with only 10pt hangs.

The consequence is a choice between more subjective refeereeing (yay!), less rules (battlebots!) or purposely high penalty values to scare teams from accidentally or intentionally committing the foul (50pts!).

But just to be clear - I think that your analysis (and all of TwentyFour) is great and useful and more publishing of this type of analysis and deconstruction would really help the community and the GDC.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

I only watched Waterloo eliminations and a few random qualification matches. I do agree that any rule that relies on a interpretation of an ambiguous word is not very good. It is very hard to standardize a word like "ramming" or "aggressive", and only giving teams a referees a day to wrap their heads around the new change, which has the ability to totally change the game if interpreted a certain way, is a risky move.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

Fun fact that most people don't know - My degree is Computer Science with a concentration in Game Design. So, the following is based primarily on that...


Let's say we are designing a game. Obviously there is a set path we want the player to follow to advance through the level. There's a couple different options we have.


1) We can incentivize that path with things like points, power ups, or just cool visual experiences (Carrot)
2) We can penalize them (death, point loss, waves of enemies) for alternate paths. (Stick)
3) We can force them down that path by not allowing any other options. (Rails)

All three options are perfectly valid and have their uses.

The Rails options isn't really viable for the GDC. Linear games don't allow teams much strategy and just straight up aren't fun for FRC. Plus, it's pretty hard to do this when you don't control everything the players can do like you do in a game. (Wanna block off an area? Put up an invisible wall)

Now, the Stick method is one that the GDC favored this year. "Play this game the way the developer intended or you will be punished" is a viable approach and some games excel with it. Personally I've always found that it chafes to play these games. There's very little freedom and you often see crazy high penalties for alternative play styles and the metagame quickly becomes stale because it's not a function of strategic play, merely executing more effectively.

The Carrot method, in my opinion, is optimal for game design. 2013 encouraged teams to play the game they wanted by making it easy enough to play the game that the penalty for being even a 50% shooter wasn't that high. Think of this as the pick up and play factor. There were lots of ways to play and teams tried them all to varying degrees of success.


Now, why this is relevant to FRC and why I dislike this game...

The Stick and Rails patterns are just lazy design. There, I said it. This game was just lazy. Properly incentivizing scoring so as to discourage defense takes a lot of work but it creates better FRC games. Much in the way that discouraging camping in FPS games takes a fair bit of work but creates less boring games.

Couple that with the high degree of difficulty of executing successfully (scoring) and the penalty for failure being high? You're going to produce not only a bad game but a toxic community. One need look no further than DOTA/LOL to see what happens with a hard game that has a high penalty for failure. (There's a reason I never got into those games; I don't like being called a 'feeding noob' or whatever the derogative du jour is)

So, I don't like this game because it IS, by almost every measure I was taught, a bad game. It is lazily designed, difficult, and punishing and has created a toxic community.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

Hard and punishing games do not always create a toxic community. I'll point you towards Dark Souls 1 and 2, where the game is extremely punishing and exceptionally difficult, and still enjoyed by millions of fans.

One needs to look no farther then DOTA/LOL to see what happens with a hard game that has a high penalty for failure. LOL is the most successful esports game to date, with over 3 million people watching the world championships and over $17 million in prize money, coupled with hundreds of smaller tournaments.

Unfortunately, comparing FRC to video games isn't exactly the best choice. You can choose not to play a certain game, and go play another one instead. The same thing applies to sports. You don't like basketball? Well there's football and soccer and baseball etc. etc. You can't say, "Oh I don't like Aerial Assist so I'm going to play Rebound Rumble instead."

There just simply isn't a parallel here.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

DS1 and DS2 are not really designed as a wide audience multiplayer game. They are good games but they aren't really designed to compete with your CoD/Battlefield/Halo/LOL type stuff which is designed as mass market distraction (Personal opinions about mass market games go here). See also Super Meat Boy (which is a great way of disposing of extra gamepads/monitors). I should have been more clear, hard/punishing games forcing players to work as teams were more what I was focusing on.

DOTA/LOL may be successful esports games because, when played well, they are phenomenal games. (There was a followup I was going to write about that topic). But they are not a good community.

Comparing FRC to video games is actually quite valid as they are both games designed to be played much the same as soccer/basketball (hockey is not a sport, it's a way of life thank you very much!). Many of the same tricks apply to FRC/FTC games as apply to any other multiplayer game designed for mass market. And, I CAN go play other games. If I don't like FRC I can go play Vex, or battlebots, or compete in the AVC, or IGVC, or any of a dozen other competitions for robots.


And for folks who think I'm being too harsh - There IS a followup to these posts talking about why 2014 is a good concept that does achieve a lot of FIRST's goals. I just need a little longer to think the topic through. I'm a firm believer in props where props are due.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

Generally, powerhouse teams build the best robots every year. There are always exceptions of course, but I can tell you, atleast in Michigan, that 33, 67, 469, and the like will always build some of the best robots in the state. They generally win their districts and win states as well.

I for one would rather see an alliance of "average" robots beat an alliance of powerhouse teams. If the best robots won every event simply because they are built the best, then why do we have a competition? Why don't we just say "33, 67, and 469 built the best robots in Michigan this year, they win all the competitions there's no need to actually compete."

Upsets are some of the most exciting things in anything. Period. It doesn't matter whether its a video game, a professional sport, or an FRC competition. When the 4th alliance pulls out an excellent strategy and manages to defeat the double powerhouse teamed 1st alliance, everyone it up on their feet cheering.

If the best robots should win every year, what do you tell to a rookie team that built a defensive bot because that is only thing they have the knowledge to do? "I'm sorry, but there's absolutely no way for you to win the competition because there are better robots here so don't even bother trying."

So why should you even bother trying to build the best robot possible? Because it gives you the best chance to win a competition. It gives you the best chance to seed higher. And it gives your students something to be proud of. Because it's INSPIRING.



FRC isn't a beauty contest. It's a competition. You get awards for building the best mechanically sound robot. That's why we have judges and awards, to showcase the teams that build the best designed robots. The competition part is a culmination of good robots, strategy, and skill. The Winning alliance is the alliance that has the best combination of the 3, not just the first part.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

I agree very much that a powerhouse alliance being taken down by some average robots with a killer strategy is a great and exciting thing, and is, IMO, the coolest part of the game. Having powerhouse robots kicked out because of stupid rules that make winning pure chance is bad. Personally, I'm not sure how I feel about some of the rules. Sometimes, I think that the GDC is right in what they've done, sometimes I feel they shouldn't have changed it, and other times I hate this game. Right now, I kind of like it :D

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

You have at least 2 matches to beat the opposing alliance during eliminations.If you lost because of fouls in both of them, then it is highly unlikely that both of them resulted from "stupid rules". If they did, and you incurred the same "stupid rule" twice, then the old saying "Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me" applies.

I understand where you're coming from. I felt pretty angry myself after the Newton Finals in 2012. The difference is, your alliance had to do something to get a foul. You either hit someone a little too hard, or dropped your intake down at the wrong time, but you had control over the situation. Drive a bit slower, be more careful with your intake, spend more time training your human player. These are all things that you can do to make the second (or third) match more successful.

My main problem with the complaints about the penalties is there was something you could do to not incur the foul. You see someone coming at you fast with a non-robust robot? Back up. Chances are the 5 additional seconds it'll take you to pick up the ball aren't going to change the outcome of the match. If it costs you the match because you can't get a last second truss shot off, then it's worth the risk to stay and get hit. If there's still a minute left to go, why risk incurring a 50 point tech foul?

What happened in Newton Finals 2012, we had absolutely no control over, there was no way to do anything about it. What so ever. However, not a single 68 student came on to the forums to complain. Or a member of our alliance. And that was us losing to events outside of our control. You can see why I'm against all the posts complaining about things that were within a teams control.

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

As you probably know though, any design has a combination of these three things. I cannot think of any game that does not have a 'rail' or 'stick' involved.

There will always be the possibility of actions that are:

a) malicious or dangerous
b) unfairly advantageous

Regardless of how many 'carrots' you provide. If we talk on a points per second ratio, and the assumption that point prevented = point scored, there will always be means of gaining points that are not within the original intention of the game.

This is why every rule set has foul/penalties.

I think Aerial Assist is intended to be a dynamic game, with both offense and defense, but the kind that requires good teamwork and organisation. Defensive strategies where one robot can prevent another team from scoring are the main causes for concern.

The fact that there is only one ball and that you rely on your partners is central to the game. Accepting that's not going to change, the rules now need to reflect the need to realize the original vision of a dynamic and co-operation oriented game.

So, the rules they have for achieving those goals:

Incentivize working together on offense/prevent an unbeatable lone wolf:

Carrot
- 30pt for triple assists (3 robots)
- 20pt truss & catch (2 robots)
- mobility bonus (per robot)
- Assist as second ranking

Rail:
- one ball at a time
- one truss per cycle

Incentivise working together on defence/prevent one robot from crippling an alliance:

Carrot:
- two "idle" robots

Stick:
- G12 (possession of an opposition ball)
- Goalie rules
- low goal rule

Protect robots/Prevent robot assassination

Carrot:
- Random qualification partnerships
- GP

Rail:
- Inspection

Stick:
- G27
- G28
- G14

Protect humans/prevent risking human safety

Stick:
- G40

I think the goal for safety-related rules should not be stick-oriented, but be rail-oriented. Reduce the possibility of people being hurt rather than de-incentivise. Otherwise, the general architecture of the game seems pretty balanced. I'm not clever enough personally to see possible improvements of 'stick to carrot'.

How sharp and jaggedy those sticks are is another question.

Then there is another set of possible actions that are not accounted for: inadvertent actions. Basically anything in the hole between what carrot/stick guide you toward, and the rail.

Any FRC rule set is vulnerable to these actions, especially the more interaction teams have with the opposition. How do you judicate for these actions (eg a robot damaging another robot, tipping, hitting the ball out of the field etc)?

Re: Why does everyone hate this game so much?
 

I'm not a computer game guy, but I've been paid in real life for design work on card, board, roleplaying, and tabletop miniatures wargames. I think the best parallel between any of these and FRC is the last one, because it's very open-ended in terms of strategy (including force selection) and tactics (in-game actions).

[As an aside, the absolute hardest part of wargame design is balance between forces; fortunately, FIRST doesn't worry about that overmuch beyond some power, money, and time restrictions--we don't have a point system for force-building to exploit.]