Originally Posted by martin417 (Post 1367801)

Definitions:





By definition, every year when a team signs up for an FRC competition they are buying a ‘pig in a poke’. It is the nature of the system. Registration has to happen before the game reveal. Most of the time, they receive a reasonably healthy pig, one that meets or exceeds their expectations. There are sometimes a few blemishes and imperfections (there are not very many perfect pigs in the world) but for the most part the vast majority of purchasers are satisfied.

This year, the pig arrived barely alive, with very little meat on the bones, and once prepared, the meat turned out to be severely infested with Trichinella, so consumption was immediately followed by Trichinosis. Most of the people with whom I spoke at the competition agreed that this is the worst game to come from the GDC in recent memory. I saw one of the best head refs in FRC extremely frustrated and upset. At the conclusion of almost every match, there were one or more angry kids in the question box wanting to argue a call. This is not the fault of the refs. There is no way a ref can watch two robots collide, and then go through the mental flow chart necessary to decide if a foul occurred, and if so, what foul, who initiated it, was it intentional, consequential, strategic etc. and still perform the rest of their duties.

Compounding the ref / foul issue, there is the single game piece aspect. With only one game piece, there are always at least four robots on the field with nothing to do, so they end up just bashing into each other, creating multiple action areas on the field that the refs have to watch for these fouls. And since it is the refs’ job to assign fouls, assign fouls they do! I have seen stationary robots assigned technical fouls for “contact inside the frame perimeter” when they were hit by another robot while waiting to catch a truss shot. It appeared to me that if a robot was damaged in a collision, the other robot was given a foul, regardless of who initiated the contact. It adds a new strategy where a team could simply affix fragile items all around the robot, inside the frame perimeter, then run into an opposing robot’s appendage causing said fragile item to break, and get 50 free points.

What was the goal? Did the GDC foresee the outcome? Was the goal met? Was the result intentional? Or is it possible that they did not realize what would happen? As soon as I read through the rules I knew that reffing was going to be an awful, thankless, and near impossible task. A long time ref is a friend of mine, and we discussed how bad the ref’s job would be right after kickoff. As the season went on, and more responsibility was heaped on the refs, things just got worse. At Peachtree, the top four OPR robots were eliminated in the quarterfinals. Perhaps that was the goal, to “level the playing field”. I have never been a fan of the “randomness factor” in FRC, where you are at the mercy of the alliance scheduling algorithm for your seeding position. As a mentor I have been on both sides of the equation. There have been times when we were matched with only great robots, and we seeded first, as well as times where we were matched with pizza boxes or no-shows and seeded low. This year put much more emphasis on alliance partners for seeding. If the goal of the GDC was to teach kids that “life ain’t fair”, they succeeded. I’m not saying the kids were not inspired, they were. They were also frustrated, disappointed, and disillusioned.

Originally Posted by notmattlythgoe (Post 1367809)

This is not a game that you can win on your own, and I'm perfectly fine with that. I think they did a better job of trying to force teamwork this year than in the past.

Originally Posted by aryker (Post 1367818)

I find this concept of "forcing teamwork" extremely frustrating. Every team, by definition of being a team, ensures that the students are doing teamwork. Throwing in two more randomly-chosen teams as alliance partners and forcing you to rely on them to succeed is just excessive. It's very demoralizing for the kids to have their awesome robot, which they spent so much time and effort on(as a team, don't forget), be seeded at a horrible spot due to a random number generator and a game that forced that random number generator to be a deciding factor. Ultimate Ascent was, in my opinion, one of the best games FRC has ever seen because it was a game where one great robot could carry their alliance, while at the same time, 2 or 3 great robots in alliance together made things even more awesome.

Originally Posted by notmattlythgoe (Post 1367809)

I don't think the seeding is any worse this year than it was for Rebound Rumble, and it's nowhere near as bad as week 1 of Breakaway where you could beat an opponent and end up ranked below them as a result. This game forces you to actively think of ways to create assists, and even with the "pizza-boxes" there are ways to do that consistently. This is not a game that you can win on your own, and I'm perfectly fine with that. I think they did a better job of trying to force teamwork this year than in the past.

Originally Posted by aryker (Post 1367818)

I find this concept of "forcing teamwork" extremely frustrating. Every team, by definition of being a team, ensures that the students are doing teamwork. Throwing in two more randomly-chosen teams as alliance partners and forcing you to rely on them to succeed is just excessive. It's very demoralizing for the kids to have their awesome robot, which they spent so much time and effort on(as a team, don't forget), be seeded at a horrible spot due to a random number generator and a game that forced that random number generator to be a deciding factor. Ultimate Ascent was, in my opinion, one of the best games FRC has ever seen because it was a game where one great robot could carry their alliance, while at the same time, 2 or 3 great robots in alliance together made things even more awesome.

Originally Posted by notmattlythgoe (Post 1367824)

Then what it the point of having alliances if you want each robot to just do their own thing? We should just play one on one if that is the case. In understand it can be frustrating to end up ranked low because of partner pairings. I've been there too, but only creating games that teams can win on their own is not pushing the teamwork between teams (coopertition) that FIRST wants to promote.

Originally Posted by aryker (Post 1367818)

Ultimate Ascent was, in my opinion, one of the best games FRC has ever seen because it was a game where one great robot could carry their alliance, while at the same time, 2 or 3 great robots in alliance together made things even more awesome.

Originally Posted by billbo911 (Post 1367836)

Emphasis is mine.
I truly believe this was the core goal of the GDC with this game. If I am correct, then they achieved their goal, and I for one, really like that as the objective.

Now here comes the "but".
Too many other aspects of this game fell short of the standards FIRST has demonstrated over the last few years. Threads like "Hot Goal Timing Issues" and "paper: Spanking the Children" are examples of the frustration teams are dealing with (Martin's proverbial Pig).

In defense of both FIRST and the GDC, I understand how difficult it is to develop a game each year that is a serious challenge to the elite teams as well as having contributions to the game that the struggling teams can achieve. Although, I believe they missed the mark this year.

Originally Posted by Orion.DeYoe (Post 1367839)

These are my thoughts exactly. It's like saying Apple and Microsoft have to work together to make computers. It's called a competition for a reason. You're trying to defeat other teams. It makes everyone better and forces teams to turn out higher quality robots. GP is one thing, but this game is another.

Originally Posted by notmattlythgoe (Post 1367844)

You can't win this game on your own, so come up with a way your partners can contribute each match. If you don't do this you will not like where you end up ranked come alliance selections and that is your own fault.

Originally Posted by Orion.DeYoe (Post 1367839)

These are my thoughts exactly. It's like saying Apple and Microsoft have to work together to make computers. It's called a competition for a reason. You're trying to defeat other teams. It makes everyone better and forces teams to turn out higher quality robots. GP is one thing, but this game is another.

Originally Posted by John Retkowski (Post 1367859)

This is just my opinion but I don't think that's very fair at all. I can understand that a team who ignores their alliance partners and just keeps the ball for themselves deserves to lose. But I've seen way to many matches where teams work hard forming strategies, and robots drop that strategy the first moment something go's wrong. Someone might miss a truss shot or miss scoring in a goal; the ball may fall out of a bot. As soon as this happens one or more robots on the alliance will just abandon all plans and take the ball to do whatever they want. Other times the match will begin to have robots just lose communications and sit on the field dead for the whole match.

What I'm trying to say is that it's not about the robots. There are robots for every strategy, but their are some teams that don't play well with any strategy.