Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

I know after last season many people were singing the praises of Ultimate Ascent as the best FRC game ever. As I think back on this year, at least from my perspective as a drive coach, I found the depth of strategy this year to be second to none. I thought at the highest levels of play, Aerial Assist was a blast to watch, and offered a lot of nuances that teams took advantage of. That said, I'm still not sure if those aspects make up for the field and refereeing issues that plagued the early season.

I haven't made up my mind yet, but I'm curious what others think. How would you compare Aerial Assist to Ultimate Ascent?

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

Arial Assist turned out better than I thought it would but it doesn't even show up on the radar compared to Ultimate Ascent or Rebound Rumble for that matter.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

It was the most strategic game and was a blast to watch at high levels. Once the bugs were fixed it was going pretty well.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

Absolutely not

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

Nope. Worst game in the last 3 years that I've been involved.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

Worst is such a strong word. I'd call it the lesser of the 3 most recent games which were all pretty amazing.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

I still think its the worst game since Lunacy.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

Also known as worst?

Up until division eliminations, there were still teams that could barely contribute. Yes that happens every year, but it wasn't nearly so devastating as this year. All other problems with this game aside, that was the killer.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

At first, I didn't really like Aerial Assist, with it being such a break from the norm and whatnot. However, as the season progressed, it grew on me and I became more tolerant of it as I saw the strategy involved and the teamwork of good alliances. It did have definite flaws (subjective rules and fouls, lesser robots dragging alliances down, etc.), but overall Aerial Assist is my favorite game of the last three. Rebound Rumble and Ultimate Ascent were both great games, but I personally feel that Aerial Assist was superior in terms of strategy, teamwork, and entertainment.

*hides under desk*

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

All the dislike of the game aside I cannot wait to see this game on display at IRI. The qualification rounds won't suck there.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

What strategic play did you see, besides defense/evasion? I'm curious. I'd really like to see two balls in play for each alliance at IRI, since that'd actually open up strategic tradeoffs like parallel scoring vs assisting, defense vs inbounding a second ball, etc.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

I found the game itself to be much more fun than Ultimate Ascent from last year, but that is likely due in part to our team's strategy towards this game. We went for a robot that could shoot the high goal and truss this year and were successful with that strategy, whereas last year we designed a climber for a 50 point climb and dump.

While we did manage to get the climb and dump down to about 20 seconds before our final competition in the offseason, it was more fun from a driver's perspective this year where there was always something for me to do that directly affected the outcome of the match. With the safe zones last year defense wasn't quite as effective as this year, which led to some periods of time sitting and waiting to disrupt their cycles while they traveled to their preferred shooting location.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

Even if you disregard all the terrible bugs, and the parts of the game design that didn't seem to be thought out from a teams perspective (Gee, what if a robot breaks with a ball in it! Gosh, what might robots want to do if they can't help score at all?) this was still a bad game. You routinely got screwed over by your alliance partners, despite your best attempts to help them out and "raise the level of competition."

This game would have been much cooler if it had two balls (or safe zones, or something else). It would have basically been an offensive shootout where the assist points would have been basically just bonuses. There would be something for teams to do besides defense in most matches. You would no longer see 3+ team scrums in the middle of the field preventing scoring from happening essentially every match.

In UA, if you built a good robot, you could put up a lot of points and put on a good show, no matter if you were paired with bad people or not. Fancy that, better robots winning matches...

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

In concept, I think Aerial Assist is the superior game by far. A game that actually required an alliance to function as a team in every part of play is a change I have been waiting for. Ultimate Ascent had some great gameplay, but it was nowhere near as exciting as Aerial Assist once you hit top tier play- which brings about the fundamental issues in Aerial Assist. We shouldnt have to wait for Elims or Champs to consistently see a game played well. While this happens every year, it was far worse this year.

Aerial Assist was amazing in how it forced coopertition between different teams. It really raised the ceiling for what an alliance can do- but it also raised the floor. Robots were far more valuable this year, and a non functional one was a near-insurmountable handicap. Aerial Assist was a huge wakeup call, in that we need to start paying more attention into improving not only ourselves, but the teams around us too. In addition, the plague of rule issues and the overwhelming responsibility put on the referees really killed the game at times. The game itself was brilliant, but it was dragged down by the rules, refs, and community being unprepared for it.

Ultimate Ascent on the other hand, didn't suffer anything close to the degree of issues that plagued Aerial Assist. Teams could win on their own if they needed to, as weak alliance partners didnt necessarily kill any chance at a win. The rules were also pretty sound, and the absence of enormous technical fouls added to smoother match play. Combine this with fast paced scoring and a captivating endgame, and you have a great game.

The strategy aspect of Ultimate Ascent was weaker though. I'm going to miss the deep strategic interaction every alliance had to go through before each match. Teams felt a lot more connected out there on the field, and. I found Aerial Assist far more engaging than ultimate ascent.

In real practice, Ultimate Ascent was better on an overall level. It just went smoother over the whole season. We were ready for a game like ultimate ascent, because it didnt diverge too far from what we as a community are used to.

Tl;Dr The good parts of Aerial Assist (coopertition, gameplay) were some of the best FIRST has ever released. Aside from teams not being ready to cooperate, the other issues like badly written rules could have happened to any other game. Ultimate Ascent didnt have those issues though, so it wins in practice.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

Yes, by a large margin.

After experiencing how much more interesting/exciting this game was to watch and to play than the previous structure of "seeing which set of three robots can score the post points in parallel," I hope Aerial Assist signals a fundamental shift of focus to games requiring teamwork and cooperation for success.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

Waaaaay better than last year, except for endgame.
Watching Ultimate Ascent was like watching 6 little scoring matches going on all at the same time. No teamwork or coopertition was particularly involved. It was pretty much the same at every level to watch.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

In eliminations, it was far better. In qualifications, it was far worse. For me, they're about equal (though I liked the 2013 season a bit better for obvious reasons :P)

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

That question depends on who your partners are.

Because AA is no fun with 2 boxes. It's a lot of fun with even alliances

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

This year was a lot more interesting overall. Last year scouting was pretty easy as it was all point based, there were no 'other' factors. This year you have to consider defense, different autonomous programs and versatility.

As a spectator sport this was much better, as last year it was a bunch of frisbees flying with no one knowing who is winning. This year every shot count and crowd reactions were extremely noticeable. The crowd was stunned when the Cheesy Poofs swerved to avoid 1114's goalie arm this year.

I think robot design was a little bit easier this year, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. It just shifts the focus of the team more towards strategy and scouting, which are important aspects.

The main reason people hate this game is because it is a truly team-oriented game. You have to rely on your partners, and that doesn't suit people.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

Barring all technical issues and with this game played like it should be, I love this game probably more than I love Ultimate Ascent which I thought got stale.

I was in Anaheim at VEX Worlds this week so I wasn't able to catch any of the streams of CMP which I will do when I get home.

But the entirety of this game, from the low floor to the logistical issues definitely make the game less enjoyable.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

No.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

I wish there was a way to incorporate the amount of teamwork required for alliances to do well in eliminations this year, but not cause teams to suffer as drastically as some did during qualifications if they get stuck with less than functioning partners.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

I'm so unbelievably torn about this game.
On one hand my team just experienced a terrible weekend where having the worst match schedule in the division caused us to go 3-7, despite our robot doing well all but two of those matches. It seemed like very match we were either paired with a team whose robot couldn't effectively play any part of the game, a team that completely ignored the preset strategy, or a good robot that found a way to break during our match.
And the fouls are absolutely awful. Both of our eliminations matches in Archimedes were more or less decided by fouls- some of which I disagreed with. (The score margin won't tell you, but I felt that sometimes some fouls should have gone the other way rather than against us- but I digress- after re-watching some footage they're not that hard to believe.).

But then I watched an amazing 8 seed beat the Fighting OPeagle Barons in the quarters with amazing strategy, and that same alliance fall apart because they rushed and were outplayed by the Winnosis Windtorque alliance, I watched that smart alliance take the trip to Einstein from the Buzzkill Rushknights who everyone thought was going to win the division while 1625 pushed the bees back and forth across the field a few times.
And then I watched two semifinals on Einstein- one was an offensive shootout that was spectacular to watch and one was a game of defensive shut-down decided by who managed to get the shots off despite the shut-down D.
And who could forget All Las Cheesy Chaos versus the SimPirCircuitage epic finals- with the game of autonomous chicken and the back and forth cycling.

I can't help but love this game when fouls are decided reasonably and the robots are of a high caliber- the strategic and simultaneous play is phenomenal to watch and more phenomenal to play.
It's a polarizing game now, and I think will continue to be until we have a new game to criticize next year.
I just wish my otherwise fantastic senior season didn't have to be tarnished by what-ifs... :(

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

I personally enjoyed this game right from the start. I thought the change to a more team based game would bring about a completly knew kind of competition, which it did.

Ill admit I was worried about how it was going to play out in actualy competition after the problems it had in the early weeks. But after playing though two regionals and champs I was reassured with my original view.

Quarter final 1 matches 1, 2, and 3 on Archimedes were easily the most exhilerating matches I'd ever seen. I definitly recomend watching those matches, the 8th seed upset our alliance in 3 INSANE matches that added up to over 1600 points total!

I personally enjoyed this game more than Ultimate Ascent.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

I'm incredibly conflicted. Personally, as someone who absolutely loves game strategy of any kind (chess, Pokemon, etc), and as someone who spent countless hours discussing strategy and match results with their dad (also the team's drive coach for most of the season), this game was astronomically better conceptually than anything FIRST has ever produced. It required all members of the alliance to be involved and strategizing. This meant that a single robot generally couldn't overpower a superior opposing strategy. It made the game much deeper than just flinging frisbees or basketballs as quick as possible. Roles were especially important during elims, as it seemed each alliance was seeking an inbounder who could defend once they received and got rid of the ball, a trusser who could quickly acquire the ball and truss it without being pushed around too easily, and a scorer who could get the ball from the human player and was generally maneuverable enough to get into scoring position. This also gave the chance for mid-level teams to be very good picks as they fulfilled a role that top-tier teams (often shooters) needed. Plus it was fairly easy for the crowd to get excited - as opposed to watching numbers rise on a screen for two and a half minutes as robots sat there or moved back and forth, they understood that one ball being scored earned a lot of points if a lot of robots touched it, and it could easily turn the tide of a match.

On the other hand this game might have been better suited to a college level competition. Having one or two rookies with no ball controlling mechanism could often lose a match for even the best of teams. The unfortunate fact of FRC is that there will always be teams that are not much more than rolling chassis (chassi? chassises?). This means that if they aren't exceptionally lucky with their matchlist, they might not win a single match at all. A college competition would be much more likely to not have near-useless robots. Regardless, a weighting system might be viable to give teams similarly-skilled alliances for more even scoring matches, but then a lot of teams would likely not be with rookies/skilled veterans at all, which isn't super GP.

Anyways I do think AA > UA, simply because the strategy aspect is second to none. That's why I like Ring It Up way more than Block Party; the game wasn't as exciting but strategy was much more fun. There were a few tweaks that could've been made possibly to create a smoother experience but overall I think Aerial Assist will be remembered as one of the best FRC games ever.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

The two games in particular where both interesting. But all in all, I believe that Aerial Assist was a slightly better game, due to several inputs. Since I am apart of the Pit Crew/Mechanical/CAD team on my team, I have been involved with many different ways of going upon scoring and overall play. In terms of technical design, Ultimate Ascent was simple, hopper and shooter, then score as many Frisbee as possible. Also, the strategy that was involved this year was much more involved than the last few years.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

No, ultimate ascent was better. I judge a game by the way strangers can watch it even if they know nothing about FIRST. With basketballs and then frisbees, everybody could watch and cheer when someone scored. Everyone really knew the rules right away. This year, it was confusing to watch at some points. Assists and the defense and so many foul points made it really great but also very painful at some points.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

I liked the concept of Aerial Assist better. Ultimate Ascent wasn't my favorite game ever, but I definitely see why people liked it so much. Unfortunately, the implementation of this game really hindered it. :deadhorse:

Rebound Rumble will always be my favorite. Aerial Assist could have surpassed it. In the end, I ended up liking the concept and the Einstein matches better, but Ultimate Ascent was superior overall due to reasons already discussed over the past few months on this forum. I didn't cringe to the point of tears during Rebound Rumble or Ultimate Ascent. I did during Aerial Assist, and the 2014 Land of 10,000 Lakes qualification rounds were the most disappointing, low-energy matches I've seen in my three-year FIRST career. 10K is my favorite Regional, but the matches were barely worth watching when powerhouse teams weren't on the field. :(

I'd say more, but I've already put a "deadhorse" graphic here.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

On Curie the Fighting Pi/PWNAGE alliance had some amazing passes across the field to the human player to get around defense and get three assists. Also there was a lot involved in finals on Einstein because of the auto modes. 254 pulls a fast one on 1114 and goes left all the way, 1114 gets in their way and makes them miss next match, then they have 2848 ram them to slow them down and prevent them from messing up the poof's auto.

In general there was a lot of strategy involved in deciding what robot did what, whether to prioritize assists or the truss, one point vs ten point goals, and trading off for zone defense. From a strategic perspective it was an incredibly complex game to watch compared to the last few years.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

[quote=Tyler2517;1379327]It was the most strategic game and was a blast to wasimilarhigh levels. Once the bugs were fixed it was going pretty well.[/QUOTE

So everyone has there own opinions but I think if you isolate each game to just its strategic components you can rank them pretty easily. If you were not around for 05 or 07 you really should check them out.

Looking only at each game from a strategic level.
1. 2007 - deciding where to score and cool end game. Cool Robot types
2. 2005 - deciding where to score and when.
3. 2013 - cycling climbing fcs
4. 2014 - pre match decided games. DEFENSE. Where to score. ASSISTS. 2 balls would have made game better...
5. 2012 - bridge points.
6. 2010 - how soon people forget how bad week 1 was but it got fixed too.
7. 2008 - different concept but hard to understand score. all matches seemed similar.
8. 2006 - shooting was cool at the time but has been better since. Periods was cool.
9. 2011 - every game played exactly the same. OP end game.
10. 2009 - try to drive. Pin near human player...

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

I like Aerial Assist at a high-level. With 6 strong robots, solid strategy, and the improved penalty calling by CMP, Aerial Assist is a fun game to watch.

At a low level with teams that struggle to corral the ball, much less pick it up and actually score it? Its really painful to watch.

I think that both Ultimate Ascent, and Rebound Rumble were more engaging at a low level, but Aerial Assist is my favourite to watch for high-level awesome strategies.

I saw 51's alliance at champs making a nearly indefensible setup, truss-to-HP, then HP throws into a catcher-bot glued to the front face of the low goal to score it high. Not moving from that position unless necessary helped to keep defenders from getting between them and the goal. Its a significant part of how they toppled the #1 alliance in Archimedes.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

Coming from the perspective of a driver for this year and last year, AA was much better by far. I loved having to come up with a strategy with your alliance partners and trying to find a way to use even the simplest robot. The strategy involved really got the crowd involved and each ball had so much potential to affect the game. Overall I liked AA much better than UA. I think it was a great idea on FIRST's part.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

I don't think it was the worst game, but I don't think it's the best either. Autonomous seemed to have created the outcome of most matches, not giving the other alliance a chance to win. But it was fun to watch the finals matches on Einstein.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

That could not be more true. This game was great because it made it so the top teams weren't invincible during elims, any alliance with the right strategy can win.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

I think this game is better than Ultimate Ascent. It was designed to be played on Einstein and those final matches were awesome. One of the things that made the game great was the evolution of strategies as the competition got better. We saw brand new strategies show up AT WORLDS! Every alliance had their opportunity to win through excellent strategy and teamwork, making upsets more common and exciting. This is unlike Ultimate Ascent, which could be won by 3 similar robots that never interacted with each other because the game forced independence.

This year, it was extremely important that robots were consistent and drive teams worked together behind the glass. My team suffered at both MSC and Curie from not working well with other teams. We had a hard time getting picked or seeding high because of this, and while it was a little upsetting, we learned a lot about how to present ourselves. This game was an excellent opportunity for teams to learn how to be gracious professionals and better embody the ideals of FIRST, so in that respect this game was better than most. If you went into this year hoping to win alone, then it was probably a disappointing year.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

This.

I never really liked this game all that much, but it definitely got better as the season progressed. By the time Champs came around, almost every match I saw was well-managed, well-played, and exciting to watch. The Einstein matches were some of the best I've seen in a long time. They were without a doubt more exciting than the finals for Ultimate Ascent. However, the Ultimate Ascent matches were much better to watch during the early and middle parts of the season. Aerial Assist improved by leaps and bounds towards the end, but that doesn't make up for the flaws that made it so much worse in the beginning. Overall, Ultimate Ascent was by far the superior game.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

We have been playing in three team alliances for 12 years now, and Aerial Assist is the first game to even come close to a traditional "team sport", which explains all of the problems not related to rules or the game field. The game itself can very much be modeled like a team sport because you need everyone playing amazingly to succeed, which isn't a very far fetched idea since that's kinda how the best sports teams are as successful as they are. Surprise, the most sport-like game we've had in the history of FIRST plays like an actual sport! Nobody saw that coming. And that's the truth - nobody was prepared for this kind of game. Every game we've played in the past was all solo missions. It was like being back in FLL where the two robots are on separate tables doing their own things independently of each other. This is the first game that actually required coordination and teamwork. Just like a real sport, this game was absolutely amazing when everyone playing was a professional who knew what they were doing. But this wasn't always the case with Aerial Assist. Because you could be the leading team in March Madness and then be paired up with Hertz Middle School P.E class recreational basketball team. Imagine Jordan trying a last second pass to a 13 year old in the NBA finals. Aerial Assist, like any team sport, had high potential to be great when played by great teams, and it showed. The elims at champs were hands down the most exciting matches I have ever experienced in my lifetime. However it also had potential to suck completely, and because it is a "team sport", the team is only as strong as its weakest link, and the numbers show that even great teams lost because of partners who just couldn't play at their level.

I think Aerial Assist is a step in the right direction. We went from a game that you could play successfuly without even talking to your alliance partners (Ultimate Ascent) to a game that required complete team cooperation to win (Aerial Assist). We've found our two extremes - now to find a happy middle ground where actually playing with your partners can benefit you as an option, but is not required to win a match. You can't compare Aerial Assist and Ultimate Ascent, because they are two opposite extremes on different sides of the spectrum.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

What I liked about Ultimate Ascent was the fact that several viable strategies existed. There were a few cases where they interacted with each other in interesting ways, especially Blocker vs Full Court, and Full Court + Floor Pickup. It's fun when the robots have to respond to what the other robots are doing. But when it was six robots cycling + climbing, it was a bit like golf where everyone is just doing their own thing independently.

I'd rather have a game that provides a stronger incentive for teams to work together in interesting ways.

I don't think the solution to bad qualifier matches in regionals is to revert to non-interactive games. The game wasn't the problem - the problem is that many teams' robots are not capable of playing the game. Let's find ways to help those teams get to the next level.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

Ultimate Ascent was the height of a well-executed game for FIRST. The game, while not taking full adavantage of its potential, still came out as a very pretty game to watch. Rebound Rumble had a much stronger concept behind it: the potential to create 40 point swings in elimination matches at the drop of a hat: the strategic weight of bridges vs baskets. Aerial Assist was a game unlike anything else that FRC or any comparative robotics competition has ever seen, and with it came some bumps in the road. While the GDC was excited at taking this idea of 40 point swings throughout the whole game, and strategy being in the spotlight even during autonomous, the game was plagued by the actual high point value swings coming in highly subjective tech fouls and strategy not being well executed until elimination rounds.

I honestly do think that FIRST, FRC's GDC, and the community have learned a lot about each other and themselves this year and I encourage the GDC to take another shot at a game like Aerial Assist while taking what we all learned this year into the meetings to put together our 2015 game. Think about how this game could have looked differently with, say, an alliance-agnostic white ball that didn't count assists but allowed teams to strategize acquiring and using that ball stategically throughout the match? How would the game look different if we tried x, and would we achieve a y positive result?

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

Poor quality of matches at the beginning of the season is not exclusive to Aerial Assist. It's been pretty much universal. Remember all the 0-0 ties in 2007 and 2010? Or the matches that were reduced to 0-0 ties after penalties in 2005 and 2008? Even in the much praised, offensive games in 2012 and 2013, the scores were significantly lower earlier in the season. There was a regional finals match in week 1 last year where the losing alliance scored only 16 points. You could win multiple regionals early last year without breaking 100 points.

Schedule strength has also been a critical factor in other games. Go look at the OPR predictions that were created once the schedule was released. OPR doesn't factor in team cohesion or the nature of the game, but raw numbers alone show how much of a driving factor your match schedule is.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

Personally, I thought Ultimate Ascent was boring to watch. It was just 6 robots performing the same cycles over and over again in opposite directions.

I thought the varying strategies of Aerial Assist were entertaining to watch and made the game more exciting.

I thoroughly look forward to more games where coopertition between alliance members is a major part of the game.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

This thread is like a Bizarro World of Chief Delphi for the last 2 months. Everybody has been berating the game and how it was poorly designed, and now people are singing it's praises.

As for what I think, this was a much better Spectator sport than in past years. And I think that was exactly what FIRST was going for in expanding their reach.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

The two past games were drastically different. I personally favored Ultimate Assent for its ability to allow good robots to seed high and then form amazing alliances for eliminations. Ultimate Assent had many different designs of robots and strategies from climbers to cyclers and full court shooters. sure, there was alliances were they just cycled, but that was a good strategy. I will never forget the image of seeing 469 and 1519 pounding full court shots while 33 cleaned up the mess in front of the goal. Areal Assist created a game where 3 robots that functioned together could pull of any upset imaginable, which created some of the best elimination matches that I have ever seen. The qualification matches however saw many matches where one robot or two robots were trying to come back against another alliances of 3 fully functioning robots. This left much of the seeding for eliminations to the strength of that teams schedule. I loved the way that strategy was incorporated this year, but even with a good strategy one robot could reduce their alliances chances of victory.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

I personally feel that Ultimate Ascent was better because the game was simpler to play, with less running around and debating strategy.
"Do you start middle? Yes? Alright, we'll start on the right. You have a 5-disc Auto? Fantastic, go ahead and take middle."

With this game, it's a logistical nightmare having to run around the pits, gather drive teams and talk about strategy, especially when you have 3 or even 2 match turnarounds because of scheduling.

As a member who does match strategy, I definitely enjoyed working with teams and finding out about each of their robot capabilities, and then working out a strategy together, but I think that the game eventually became stale, with the eventual strategy being Inbounder -> Outtake to Trusser -> Truss -> HP -> Score.

In Ultimate Ascent, I loved seeing different types of robots come together, such as an alliance with 2 Full-Court Shooters and a pickup. That was really fun to watch, with discs raining into the goal, and the pickup scoring any missed discs.

I also think that defense was far too powerful in this year's game, due to the presence of only one game piece. With my very limited experience in FRC (2 Years so far), I found that defense was healthy and viable in Ultimate Ascent, as there were ways to escape defense and keep the flow of the game going.

In Aerial Assist, due to there being one game element, the robot with the ball is immediately targeted, and due to the lack of a hardstop to escape around, the robot is forced into a pushing match, or a game of back-and-forth until you can fake out the opposing alliance robot.

Lastly, in Ultimate Ascent, the strength of schedule didn't matter as much, because a strong robot would've been able to carry their team to victory. In Aerial Assist, even the strongest robot would've been limited if their alliance partner's weren't equally powerful or responsive.

tl;dr:
I didn't like the game because defense was too powerful, strategy was kinda stale in Qualifications, and SoS was too influential in pick positions.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

This is precisely why I like Aerial Assist so much. Three robots playing in parallel is waaaaaay more boring than three robots forced to participate in a coherent strategy.

Also, the increased viability of defense is a very welcome change, IMO.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

Personally I really enjoyed this game. Definitely one of my favorites, up there with '05 and '07. The strategy of the game was incredible. I like control-type games which typically refers to arm games but this year you really had to control the ball and get it from bot to bot/hp to goal. Yes with sub-par teams the game can look like little league soccer, but that's because passing the ball is hard. These games aren't supposed to be easy. Adding a safe zone or a 2nd ball would have just diluted the game and reverted back to the same old thing of the best teams just go do their own thing to win. Maybe this year taught more teams the value of working together.

Last year pre-match strategy consisted of "Where do you line up in auto?" and "What loading slot do you want?" Not the most exciting game in the world.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

No. Aside from how this game played on Einstein everything else about it was some of the worst in FRC history.

The fact that only the best teams in the world were able to play this game the way it was meant to be is telling of how poorly thought out it was. The dependency of this game on having all 6 robots on the field working is a huge downside. A single dead robot almost always meant the match was over, and how heavily scheduling affected seeding order was a little bit ridiculous. This game was very poorly thought out. The only reason it was exciting to watch is because there was a single game piece and a wide open field which together maximized defensive interaction between alliances.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

This simply isn't true at all. The eliminations at both regionals 4464 attended were a blast to watch (and to participate in) and most of the teams there couldn't be called "the best teams in the world" by any stretch of the imagination.

We had a great time at championships, as well - the vast majority of our matches were close and exciting.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

This game was truly great when (a) there were 6 good robots on the field executing a coordinated game plan and (b) controversial penalties, non-calls, or field faults didn't happen.

Unfortunately, in my estimation, less than 5% of the more than 10,000 matches of Aerial Assist met both of these criteria simultaneously.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

I experienced the exact opposite at the CMP this year. New strategies were created when working with alliances, some of the notable ones are below.

Inbound > truss to HP > new bot inbound > shoot to HP on other side > shoot
Inbound > truss to HP > spit back to HP > new bot inbound > shoot
Inbound > spit back to HP > new bot inbound > truss to HP > shoot

At that is simply the teleop period, I saw lots of unique autonomous strategies including starting in the goalie zones to begin cycles immediately. My favorite was the actual use of goalie blockers during autonomous.

Even though this is my first year participating in FRC, I have been around and observed matches since 2008. I believe that Aerial Assist is on top, due to the high levels of cooperation and strategy required. It is so much more satisfying knowing that your accomplishments were aided by others, rather than carrying your alliance all by yourself. Past years have felt like the goal was score yourself, and get out of your partner's way. AA forced you to work together, and I loved it.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

Every game has its strengths and weaknesses. I think UA was much easier for a casual spectator to understand, but AA was more interesting for dedicated fans. (Aside: If you are going to show the game animation at a regional or district event, please do it in the afternoon right before elimination matches when all the casual spectators show up, not during opening ceremonies when only the dedicated fans are present).

I think the "assist" concept in AA worked best for teams in a district system. With all the value given to assists (both in scoring and seeding), your schedule had a disproportionate influence on your ranking compared to previous games. While nobody has a constitutional right to seed in proportion to their skill level, it is good when that happens, and an unfavorable schedule made that happen a bit less this year. If you only went to a single regional with a few matches and a then got a difficult schedule, you may have had a short and frustrating season. With districts, the better teams have more opportunities to prove their worth over time and move on. This allows (makes it fairer for) the GDC to come up with games where the "whole" of the alliance is greater (or less) than the "sum of the parts" in ways they haven't before. There will always be a wide diversity of skills between teams, and limiting the GDC to games that can be played well "solo" is an unfortunate constraint. As a team in a district system, I am happy to trade some "seeding inefficiency" for an exiting new dimension to the game.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

Although the game this year had some good points, overall it is one of the weaker games in my opinion.

A big plus for this year's game is that the smart alliances with a good strategy were rewarded. You really had to evaluate both your allies and opponents before a match. In Ultimate Ascent, a good scoring alliance could pretty much just ignore their opponents and still win, but this year a good defensive strategy could change everything. It's too bad that they nerfed the rough nature of the game though, as teams were so worried about incurring penalties that it made the game less exciting to watch. Which brings me to the real downside of this year's game...

Overloaded refs were asked to call (sometimes subjective) penalties that had a huge effect on the outcome of many matches. How hard is too hard to bump an opponent? What really defines herding or possession? It seemed to be different from event to event. How long is five seconds for pinning? Some of the amped up ref's arms flailed about like they were slinging six-shooters, much faster than five seconds and for a 50 point penalty. And how do they really know if a violation is intentional or not? To me, the hallmark of a poorly designed game is one riddled with penalties. If the GDC finds themselves throwing penalties on as band-aids, they should go back and rethink.

I guess my real departure from the way things are is philosophical; it's ok if FRC is a competition. Exhibitions with random outcomes are boring - true competition is exciting. We don't have to force cooperation or gracious professionalism. Look in any pit area and you will see a wonderful model for the world to follow. Just make a game that is simple and fun to watch (flying objects really help), and make sure that a box robot that plays good defense can affect the game. Oh, and if they really want to spice things up - add some bling. Flashing lights and cool sound effects that happen when something significant happens on the field will add depth to the experience.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

No.

All you posters speaking platitudes about "depth of strategy" must not have had a schedule with half your matches filled with teams who couldn't drive forward in auto, couldn't collect the ball, couldn't adhere to a plan, couldn't NOT foul, and couldn't stay connected to the field. How do you raise the floor of competition when you have alliance partners who don't even bother showing up for matches?

I completely agree that when 6 capable TEAMS are playing the game, such as champs elimination matches, it is a decent game. Champs always has better levels of game play. Unfortunately, there are too many incapable robots for this to happen in most regional competitions. When a robot can't perform (for whatever reason) it's a death knell for their alliance.

Yes, this makes it more of a "team sport" but it's not a team sport because you can't replace your alliance partners in quals. You don't have an opportunity to practice with your alliance partners in quals.

As far as other issues not related to teams: officiating was a nightmare -- there was too much to keep track of and the refs were overworked as a result; the field had dozens of unacceptable bugs that would manifest during competition. The scoring was quite confusing for anyone who wasn't deeply involved in FRC.

tl;dr - UA >> AA

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

I didn't like this game at all, the most fun i had in the drivers station was on the practice field at world with 8 balls on the field. Just because there was more possibility to make a strategy doesn't mean it was a better game.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

So having a different game would change this? There will always be robots that are not exactly capable, but that does not mean it is a bad game. Ultimate Ascent could be won by 1 dominant robot which makes the powerhouse teams happy but it is no fun for the rookies and less experienced teams. How would having a different game change the fact that some teams cannot program an auto?

So what do you define as a good game?

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

A different game will not affect how poorly teams perform. It will, however, affect how much their poor performance hinders a more capable team.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

Because UA and AA are so vastly different in the way that seeding affects outcome.

Many rookie and inexperienced teams still contributed nothing to the alliance in AA, and brought down their partners instead. At least in UA, they weren't holding back partners.

In UA the better robots usually won because there was little to no interaction amongst teammates. A powerhouse could overcome having two inexperienced partners and the better team won.

In AA, better robots could lose because they had two boxes on wheels with them due to random seeding.

You're implying AA is better because powerhouse teams got punished for no reason, and I just can't understand how anyone could support that.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

This varies crucially with your definition of "better team."

Mean and maximum are both metrics. There's no fundamental reason for the latter to be the be-all, end-all determiner of "which team should win."

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

Better meaning that in UA, a team whose robot could consistently score higher than all 3 opponent robots combined could win regardless of partners. There were WAY too many cases in AA where a consistently accurate and high scoring robot would lose a match because neither partner was able to possess the ball.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

I wasn't saying that it is a good game because powerhouse teams were punished unreasonably, but rather that less experienced teams were able to have an impact on the results of a match. Often times it was a negative impact, but there was a lot of new teams that could win with their robot...not lack thereof.

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.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

I personally believe that Ultimate Ascent was a better game and produced more variety in the types of robots made. This year most of the robots had a "wheely device" to pick up the ball and some sort of catapult to launch the ball. This years game featured a lot more teamwork but I think the different elements in Ultimate Ascent made it an all around better game. This years game was fun to watch and I think it was a good game just not the best.

I also think that having the pyramid to climb was an element that added a large challenge and it added a suspense element to the end of the game.

My overall opinion is that Ultimate Ascent was better because of the diversity and challenge.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

Considering that Aerial Assist was the game for my teams rookie year, i enjoyed it. I watched videos of last years game and can say that as a spectator it was hard to follow. My team made it to championships this year because we played great defense and could inbound well and it won us our first regional in our rookie year and from being able to go to championships and to be able to end the championship ranked 47 out of 100 in the winning division, i can personally say that this year inspired rookies like my own team to come out next year as strong as possible. I think the fact that this game relied so heavily on teamwork was a good thing because it gave teams that weren't accustomed to the feel of FRC yet a chance to really learn from the more experienced teams and truly get a feel for the competitiveness that FRC brings to the table.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

This game reminds me of the Lunacy reactions. Lots of people thought it was a crazy idea to have this type of play, but it ended up working out a lot better than expected. Matches were very fun.

I will say this, it doesn't come close to topping Rebound Rumble or Triple Play, which are arguably the two best games of all time.

My least favorite game in the last five years? Logomotion. Had no dynamic element whatsoever.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

The theory behind Aerial Assist is great, however in practice all of the issues previously mentioned sort of ruin it. In my mind, Ultimate Ascent was way better

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

This game was amazing. Take a look at the scores in the St. Louis eliminations - almost all matches were won with a spread less than 30 points, and more than half of them went to the rubber match. That tells me that almost all 32 of the elimination alliances could have had a run at Einstein if the winds of fortune shifted. I know that some people would rather have a game that crowns one team champion-except-for-the-playing on bag day. Instead, Aerial Assist rewarded those teams that innovated new strategies, worked hard on their scouting, and helped their alliances in the pits. Upset victories were common, and even rookie teams could feel like they had a shot!

I really hope next year's game is as strategic, exciting and rewarding as this year's. That is, as long as they can work out a clear, predictable and fair set of foul rules (a *really* hard problem).

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

To expand on what I said previously, one thing I really liked about Aerial Assist is that it was designed to be pretty friendly to teams that had trouble building their robots. Compared to previous years, it's great to see what a simple robot could do in Aerial Assist.

In 2013, a box on wheels could:
- Play defense (in a game that was only somewhat defense-friendly)

In 2014, a box on wheels could:
- Herd or trap the ball for assists
- Score in the low goal
- Play defense (in a game that was quite defense-friendly)
- Score in autonomous (drive forward, get mobility points, and push a ball into the low goal for either 11 or 16 points)

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

I personally believe it was quite the opposite this year. The game was actually very unfriendly towards box robots because of several different reasons. The reality being that teams that had difficulty with building a robot also had difficulty maintaining said robot. Unfortunately these teams are often rookie teams or newer teams, meaning that they are also not used to the rules of the games and the nuances of competition. Multiple times in competition you would have to tell a team to not do anything or to not use their shooter or intake because they would "get in the way" or "cause a dead ball" perhaps even net some unfortunate fouls. And although this seems like a poor showing of Gracious Professionalism, it is the sad truth because as a team, you don't want rookies to lose you a match due to fouls. Thus actually putting the restrictions on the simpler robots and their ability to participate in the match.

This is why this game is worse for simpler bots. In Ultimate Ascent there is no such thing as telling your rookie teammate to stop playing in fear of fouls. You let them play defense and if they could score you would tell them to do their best. In Aerial Assist there is just one ball per alliance and thus it is key on who has possession, if your alliance member is unable to actually do anything with the ball, then you want to minimize your risk of them getting the ball. Thus reducing their role to perhaps even less then mediocre defense.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

Perhaps it was just the regionals we attended, but our team did not see very much of this at all, at least on our end. We adapted the approach of being quite lenient with regards to "saying no", in fact barely "saying no" at all. If a team wasn't sure they would make their autonomous shot, we told them to go for it and that we would score it if they missed. We tried to make sure teams that had previously gotten fouls not get them by reminding of what not to do. We only had a few circumstances I can recall where we suggested that a team herd the ball instead of using their collector, but that was more for speeding up the cycle than dead balls or fouls. We encouraged all of our alliance partners to play in a meaningful way, both offensively and defensively.

EDIT: Again, the situation may have been different at events you attended. This is just our team's experience.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

Yep. Team's could easily have their win-loss record more or less determined by the match schedule. Carrying an alliance, although very hard in any year, I feel is particularity impossible in this game.

This game I do feel is the most strategically interesting in a while however. There are so many cool and different ways an alliance can go about trying to win; it's not just "you score as much as you can while we all do the same" like 2013 mostly was. I still have a few strategies I'd still like to see played out in the off-season.

On the other hand, with the random match schedules, (and my team's horrible luck for them) I feel particularly irked with this game. To have your rank determined by your performance directly correlating to randomly selected teams is so frustrating. In previous years you could easily show your robots capabilities even if your partners were poor and you lost matched, but now, with partners who really struggle to assist with you, doing even that is hard. No matter what way you pitch it, some teams are better than others. Getting paired with the lesser half, despite all you can do to help them, takes a much bigger hit to your own performance/appearance in this game over previous years. I know this is a more negative view of the situation, but while some do, some teams simply don't want help even if you offer it.

While I don't think OPR represents this game that well, we ended up 16th in our division for it, but ranked 91st in the official rankings. I know of a few teams this happened to and it feels like the game just didn't really work with the old style of rankings. Good teams should at least do fairly well in the rankings.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

As my first year back in FIRST after graduating high school in 2010, I grew to love this game. Obviously I'm somewhat biased because of my team's great amount of success, but I absolutely loved the strategy options this game presented. You had your inbounders, trussers, and finishers you could assemble in a variety of formations/zones. The fact that there was only one game piece meant that something like 2/3 of a given match you were playing without a ball. What do you do with that time? Defend? Get into position to start the next cycle? Run a pick for your partner? All great options that often had to be decided on the fly.

And as far as the "incapable partners dragging down good teams" thing, you can either complain about it or do something about it. Instead of complaining that you're "stuck with" fridgebot 9000 for a match, go offer some help. Maybe one of their mechanisms isn't working how they intended because something is misaligned and you can figure out a way to fix how their motors mount or improve gears meshing that might help. I know we and several other teams even developed simple inbounding mechanisms that could be modified and attached to almost any robot. Now your rookie who struggled to make a drivetrain move can assist with the best of them.

Maybe their programmer is inexperienced or made a simple mistake so their auton doesn't work or controls aren't responding properly. Spend 5 minutes to go talk to a team and say "Hey, it looked like your auton didn't run how you wanted it to last match, is there anything we can do to help you review your code?" Now they've got code that gives your team an additional 5 points to start the match.

Instead of complaining about how other teams bring yours down, you can always focus on bringing them up. Sure, you're helping yourself to have a better chance to win a match, but you're also doing the same for them. Isn't that the whole point of this "coopertition" thing I keep hearing so much is about?

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

This is exactly what 1678, 254, and probably many other teams did to ensure that they would have competent alliance partners during quals. While this might not be a feasible option for every team, I do feel that forcing teams to help other teams improve their robot and code helps create strong partnerships. Many of our mentors now adore the rookie teams that they have "adopted" and are striving to keep in contact with them to help them in the future. I think that, intentionally or not, the assist point aspect of aerial assist helped transform the culture of our team, and possibly many others.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

I've been meaning to say something like this but couldn't find a good way to phrase it. Since Aerial Assist was focused on the alliance as a whole rather than just "3 teams playing together", helping your partners improve was a great way to improve your own chances of success, even more so than in previous years. Our team has members that look for teams in need in the pits so we can help them out, and our scouters also inform them of any teams that have just had problems on the field so we can provide immediate assistance if it's necessary. While this program is designed to aid all teams at the event, in the course of doing so we eventually help our future partners as well, which ends up also helping us in the end. It's a win-win situation.

By the way, congrats on the CCA.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

Here's my answer in chronological order of the season in a collection of gifs:

-When Aerial Assist was first announced, this was my face.
-When I had the thought that a game dependent pretty much on teamwork could be the best game ever, my follow-up to "This could be the best game ever!"
-When I realized as a referee or emcee, I would have to be courtside to possibly getting hit in the face, this was my reaction.
-When we got the wrong end of the deal after some bad officiating, this was my reaction, & this was my reaction after Palmetto.
- Right as a Aerial Assist ball was heading towards my face, the moment before it hit my face and broke my glasses.
-When I finally got hit and knocked out by an Aerial Assist ball at Peachtree, this was my reaction afterwards.

Final answers, in no particular order: 1, 2, 3, & 4.

Other than my misadventures this season, AA had potential; but it only came to fruition with the really competitive matchups. Nowhere as good as Ultimate Ascent. I loved that game; and I got hit twice in that game.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

The irony with this game is that for a game intended to help out the less fortunate teams, all it really did was screw over the middle of the pack.

The powerhouses will always find a way to win. If you're talking about teams as excellent and dedicated as 254, 1678, 971, 33, 2337, etc, they'll find a way to win even if the game requires them to bake a cake in the middle of a match. Because they have so many resources and so much experience, they'll be able to come out on top almost no matter what the game is. And I think that is a good thing. Better teams should be able to win more matches.

What was bad, though, is the fact that this game screwed over a lot of upper-middle of the pack robots. A team as OP as 254 can score their way to victory even paired with two kitbots, especially if they have the resources to get these teams running well before a match. A more middle of the pack team (yes, like 100) can't mentor seven or eight rookie teams over the course of the weekend until they work well. We love to help out, but we barely have enough students to fix our own bot. As such, were stuck in matches where were held back by an inbounding robot that takes 30 seconds to spit the ball out, or by two "partners" who can't drive to save their lives. For teams like 100, how many qual matches you won was basically a function of how bad your worst partner was. We simply can't help everyone we play a match with, even though we'd love to.

Helping the rookies succeed is great, and it's something that a lot of teams prioritize regardless of the game. I remember helping the rookie team next to us get their frame legal and fix their bumpers at Davis in 2013, giving a rookie team our kit bot for CalGames 2013, and getting our rookie partner at 2013 CalGames working well enough that we made the finals. Why did we bother to do these things when we might have been able to win "independently" of the rookies? Because making these teams more competitive can help you in any game. And, at a more basic level, helping out the new kids on the block is part of what makes FIRST FIRST.

What isn't good is the whole "bringing the bottom up" thing that FIRST tries to push on us through the game from time to time. Remember the new driving surface in 2009 that was supposed to level the playing field, or the Coopertition points in 2010 and 2011, or the Coopertition bridge in 2012? Those were all attempts to bring the bottom up, and really did nothing of the sort. All they seemed to do was bring the middle down, though muddling strategies, obscuring the true quality of robots in the rankings, and generally making competitions a pain.

I love helping rookies. But I don't like it when games try to push helping rookies on us. It just makes the games lower quality, which inspires everyone less.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

What if instead of you directly helping your parners, you ask another team?
"Hey Awesome Team! I see that Struggling Team is having some problems with their random component. We play with them soon, and then you play with them later. Unfortunately, we're busy fixing our robot/another robot and don't have the manpower to fully help them. Do you have a few people who can join our person/people in helping them get going?

No one is necessarily asking you to do it all. However, by definition, veteran teams have more experience and connections than a rookie team. Not to mention it can be intimidating for a rookie to go up to a powerhouse team to ask for help. Or maybe they don't realize that there are other teams willing to help them. Serve as a middle-man and help them get help.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

If despair.com came up with a Demotivator related to FIRST, it would involve bad partners vs good opponents during qualification rounds of Aerial Assist. I suppose it would snark on the single good offensive robot being double-teamed or sandwiched in between two opponents while the two mediocre partners were shut down by a single great opponent.

However, I have yet to coach a single FRC game quite like Aerial Assist. In a single match where both alliances came out with 200+ points match we played 4 different roles and had a great time doing it.

IMO, Ultimate Ascent was still the best combination of engineering challenge and inspirational game play. Plus there weren't so many beat up robots at the end of a Regional :rolleyes:

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

Rebound Rumble was great. Ultimate Ascent was fantastic! aerial assist was good, but I absolutely loved the game last year and don't think you could easily beat Aerial assist. I want to see an off season event bringing back aerial assist, given that many teams still have their robots in functional condition, and it was such a great game.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

Aerial Assist can't even dream of thinking about coming close to being better than Ultimate Ascent... :D

I agree completely.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

I thought Aerial Assist was better, there was much more teamwork involved with the actual game and one of the main objectives is to demonstrate teamwork and "Gracious Professionalism". I did see a previous comment questioning strategies but honestly depending on our alliance partner we were required to change our strategies on more than one occasion. I thought one active ball on the field was a great idea because if a robot had trouble getting it off of the field it was interesting to see how alliance partners helped.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

Aerial Assist doesn't come close to Ultimate Ascent. The core of AA was good and had potential however combine the insane issues with penalties, bad game management FIRST put referees in, and the fact that sadly most teams just can't play the game each year it put AA as a bad year for teams who built good robots.

Sadly for many teams AA came down to a luck fest of who you were paired with (both good teams and even just teams who could get possession) and where your referees locked.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

Personally, I don't think it was. Just because Ultimate Ascent was more exciting, in my opinion. It's hard to put a label on it, because it's a matter of preference. Aerial Assist has cooperation and teamwork,while also providing more strategy options than Ultimate Ascent. It could go both ways.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

I'm all for doing this, and I try to both on a team and as an inspector. But honestly, most of the in-match problems I see aren't from mechanisms (except drivetrains, which I know some people manage to overhaul at events, but I've never seen much success). They're from inexperienced drivers or inexperienced/unresponsive coaches. It's not that they're not trying, but I've had several teams this season (in our relatively lucky schedule) that just wouldn't get to their assist or avoid fouls, no matter the pre- and in-match guidance I could give. That's what AA has really made salient to me, and preparing some of the lost drive teams I've seen to take on hard matches isn't an challenge that's conquerable during an event. Best I start earlier next time!

From a spectator's perspective, and only comparing the years I have been involved which is just Ultimate Ascent and Aerial Assist, I liked AA much better. Keeping track of 2 balls was doable, countless flying frisbees was not. Add the fact that at least in Arizona and Las Vegas the automatic scoring system was often incorrect and you had to wait for the manual counting to know what really happened. In both games I thought the weighting of penalty points was excessive. Managing the big ball was clearly more difficult than many teams anticipated, but I really think the Aerial Assist was much funner to watch overall.

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

I think there are two distinct features to consider, the game design and the rules implementation. A little bird at CMPs told me that the GDC comes up with the game and hands it to a different committee to write the rules, and it was the latter that caused the vast majority of issues in AA. Poor rules implementations defining possessions, penalties, and assigning the point values kept AA from reaching its full potential, and in that regard UA is superior.

To me, AA is several fold better than UA in terms of its game design. It is the first FRC game that actually resembles a team sport, and is far more accessible to spectators because there's typically only two game pieces. The high level of interaction between robots made the games much more gripping than last year's solo-fest. While the game design was far from perfect, the real issue was that the rules were written in such a way that issues were almost inevitable.

As for teams that couldn't possess the ball, I'd like to share an anecdote. In LA, Team 687 had a drivetrain-bot that Team 294 provided a lawn chair for so that they could at least inbound the ball. 687, affectionately dubbed ChairBot, became a crowd favorite and was selected for eliminations. For Vegas, 687 had managed to add a functional inbounding mechanism. We selected them as our second pick because they were really well driven, could do quick inbounds, and were effective defenders. They performed well, sadly being damaged over the course of 6 brutal matches in the semi-finals (3 separate field faults -- one was due to the cameraman punching a ball heading to our human player). We lost the finals in large part due to their broken drive train, but we feel like they played extremely well prior to that event. I still think we made the right choice with 687, and it was just the field faults that put more wear on their drivetrain than it could handle.

Teams also got good at herding or pinning the ball to get assists. If they didn't know about that, it's the job of their stronger alliance partners to inform them of that and help them get those assist points. It's more work, but helps make drivetrain-bots feel included in the competition.

My point here is that the problem isn't with the drivetrain-bots -- the problem is that teams would rather blame their teammates than come up with creative solutions when partnered with drivetrain-bots or limited functionality bots. Teammates can and should use this opportunity to develop both their GP and improve their strategic prowess.

I understand the frustrations of Strength of Schedule and inconsistent penalties warping the outcome of games -- we had to deal with both in CMPs. However, these aren't really issues with AA per se. The problem is that a game that is fantastic in principle had a slightly flawed implementation. Warts and all, I still think it's a big improvement over UA, and FRC is heading in the right direction.

Now all we need is for someone to give FIRST an algorithm to auto-balance match schedules based on teams' previous performances...

Re: Was Aerial Assist Better than Ultimate Ascent?
 

I am intrigued by people who say this game has more strategic depth than Ultimate Ascent, mainly because I see the polar opposite when I look at the two games. The difference could come in definition of the word but lets think about this.

Aerial Assist had two viable strategies for alliances to pursue. These played out in the finals with the 1678/1114/1640 alliance vs the 254/469/2848 alliance. One alliance was simply making two passes and scoring to limit the danger of putting a ball in the air and having two inbounds. The other was making two passes and added a truss shot. Outside of those two options you had a one niche strategy of the one pass+truss+score. Now the in match actions of robots were very important, I will agree and each individual robot needed to act on their own and make decisions, but those decisions were seldom more than can I go pass or should I play defense.

Ultimate Ascent went in a very different way. Look at the four Einstein alliances from 2013. I would argue all four of them attempted to do very different things. The 33/469/1519 alliance attacked by using two full court shooters to flood the field with frisbees and then using their floor pickups to sweep up the missed shots, the 1241/1477/610 alliance just effectively ran cycles and played the odds that their opponents would miss more shots doing fancy things, the 1678/148/862 alliance had two defenders and one full court shooter and the 1640/303/3476 alliance attempted to do everything on the field with a 30 pt hang+FCS+cycles. Saying that the game lacked depth or that it was just watching teams running cycles is very reductionist.

I thought Aerial Assist was an ok game that had potential and good moments, but on the whole lacked the variety of some of the better games in FRC history. It was more hated on than it should be, but I would rank it in the bottom half of games that I have participated in (all of them since 2005).