Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

So? Why is it necessarily a bad thing to have a game in which it's not possible to build a robot that can outscore three competent opponents on its own?

For consideration, the extreme of this line of thinking is "all games should have chokehold strategies," which is clearly nonsense.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

What restricted less experienced teams from contributing in UA? There were many ways they could score, and I saw teams who couldn't even shoot disks have more impact than teams who could (Heres your shout out 2789).

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

Because seeding is random.

It is somewhat ridiculous that you can build an awesome robot, pay thousands of dollars to attend championships, and then have 3 matches where neither partner is capable of possessing the ball, or really even move effectively. You basically lose those matches before they start.

And of course it's nonsense, Which is why your slippery slope fallacy is ridiculous.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

Well the structure of the game forced independence (which is not necessarily a bad thing;I really liked UA). Of course there are cases where rookies scored points or played defense to win a match, but I think it was much more difficult to do. Rookies could and almost always can contribute to the game in some way. I just think AA allowed them to have a real place in a strategy rather than standing alone.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

I was not aware seeding was the primary consideration in game design.

In any real team sport, could you expect to reliably win on your own? If FIRST didn't want FRC to be a team sport, why wouldn't they just get rid of alliances?

Pointing out the extremes as an attempt to figure out where exactly you'll draw the line is not a fallacy. I am attempting to reconcile our utility functions - to do this, I need to first figure out what yours is.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

So, there were six robots that couldn't drive 3 feet to push a ball on your division?

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

Until someone can provide some sort of empirical evidence, I don't buy that ranking was substantially worse this year than previous. Nobody has more than anecdotes to support that claim. Strength of schedule has always been wildly variable at championship, and plenty of awesome teams have had mediocre records just about every year.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

Fair gameplay should be.

You think Kobe would be ok playing against the Pacers with a team of 2nd graders?

In "any real team sport" all team members are capable of performing a function on the team. This is not always the case in FRC.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

There were 6 robots who were incapable of controlling their drive trains well enough to, yes. On one occurrence a team actually told us not to inbound to them because they would "Slow us down too much to score any points".

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

It sounds to me like you just want to send all of the teams that do not live up to your standards off to some low level regional where they won't bother the elders. Everybody has matches that are difficult to win due to your partners abilities but that is the thing...everybody has them. The algorythms that create the schedule are not out to get anybody and it is a fact of life that not all schedules will be perfect when there are rookie teams at the event.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

Is it "fair gameplay" when a really good robot and two toasters can beat an alliance of three competent robots?

Again, you're appealing to your own definition of "fair," without addressing the core issue here which is that we disagree as to what that word means.


This is a fundamental issue with the alliance system, and I'm pretty sure FRC are aware of it and think it's a worthy tradeoff for the benefit of having teams cooperate.

I see no reason to compromise game design to ensure that seeding more perfectly reflects the best teams at a regional. As Lil' Lavery mentioned a few posts earlier, I'm not even convinced the problem is that much worse this year than in previous years.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

On the contrary, I just believe games should be designed in a way that teams have the ability to excel despite who they get paired with.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

"The alliance with the single best robot wins" and "the alliance with the best average robot ability wins" are, as I mentioned earlier, fundamentally incompatible goals.

Why do you prefer the former? More pertinently, if FIRST were of the opinion that the former is desirable, why would they have alliances in the first place?

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

And I believe they could. An assist could be done by two robots that can't even pick up the ball. Defense could be played to wreak havoc on the opposing alliance. Sure it is hard to win with only one scoring robot, but it wasn't impossible. It was also hard to win a match in UA when you are the only moving robot.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

Keep in mind I'm not trying to argue with you, just add to the "glass half full" perspective in some small way by responding to you.

I think the "punishment" of powerhouse teams is a side effect of not letting the box on wheels rely on luck to seed reasonably well. My observations of a fairly limited and perhaps more competitive subset of events were that the best teams were still fairly consistently on the top of the charts. I also noticed that as more teams understood the game and the underlying mechanics, the less they put rookie teams in a corner or on defense. This is taking those people who are normally outcast and finding a productive and integral part for them to play because they are needed.

My and Keegan's team had our fair share of disappointing matches, believe me, but I think that the ranking system of AA might actually be one of the better ones. It pretty much removes the chance of having a powerhouse team on your alliance carrying the match, because the results reflect the combined effort of all alliance members*. The asset you bring to your matches is yourself, but you cannot expect to carry or be carried in your attempt to seed high. Great examples of success from Michigan are 2337 and 1718. They seemed to beat the odds every match, in part due to their ability to find the most effective use for everyone on their alliance. I admire these and other teams who understood the game so well and raised the level of gameplay for all of us.

I think that despite the frustration and pitfalls, some of which were overcome, this game should be an inspiration for the kind of gameplay FIRST needs to offer more of in the future.

*It isn't perfect, but at least it seems to sort the teams out of the top 20% more effectively.