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Best FIRST game...
In your opinion, what was your favorite FIRST game. Last year's game was so simple, but exciting when we got to competitions. Also being my last year as a FIRST student, and driving during the competitions, It made it a very fun game and experience.
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I'm a big fan of the 2009 game Lunacy.
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I have to go with last year. The entire elimination matches at Lake Superior were some of the best and most thrilling matches I've ever seen. |
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In my almost 6 years of competing in the FRC, I would still have to say that Logomotion was my favorite, but I feel like Recycle Rush has a good shot at overtaking it this year.
(I like lifting games.) |
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I'm a big fan of 2007's Rack 'n Roll.
I also think FIRST went on a great game streak in the 2012, 2013, and 2014 seasons. I loved all three. |
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Best autonomous is 2011 (Logomotion).
Best teleop is 2009 (Lunacy). Best endgame is 2012 (Rebound Rumble). |
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Huge fan of 2012 Rebound Rumble. Its a shame that there were problems with field connections.
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I'm with Gary, Lunacy was a lot of fun.
I guess some teams didn't figure out how to make it a fun game? |
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I'd say Aerial Assist was the best game because it integrated the concept of teamwork better than any other previous game. Although there have been many great ones, this was the most exciting in my opinion.
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Best autonomous for me is 2007 (2015 is a close second, but I want to see how it plays out). IMO, that's the last year where FRC's autonomous was harder than VRC & FTC. Every year since then, teams could dead reckon with mere encoder feedback (or nothing) in order to get major points. There has been very little incentive in recent years to attempt the harder auto routines since they give so little extra value (overall field success relative to available resources) for the average team. 2007 required any sensor system that could deal with an inconsistently-located scoring goal using hardware that was difficult to integrate with the sensors which would make the task easier.
Best Champs Teleop: 2014, by far. Alliances that were mature enough capability-wise to play the entire game DID play the entire game. Scores were through the roof and the matches were very intense. Driver practice/skill was as important as strategic decisions, as there were very few catch-up mechanisms built into the game (no end game!). My team really struggled since we couldn't get around a double-team, but the matches were still a lot of fun to coach and we were able to put up some big scores. For me, best all-around is 2013. It was fun to build, fun to test, and fun to coach. The matches were pretty intense as well, with a good blend of offense, defense, HP interaction and strategic game play. |
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Ranking games my years in FIRST (excluding this year):
2013 ULTIMATE ASCENT - Insanely exciting and fun. 2012 REBOUND RUMBLE - Technical issues and the nightmarish Eintsien aside this game was a blast to watch and the endgame was the best FIRST ever had. 2004 FIRST FRENZY: RAISING THE BAR - The best variety of robots I've seen and the robots never looked more athletic. Some of my all time favorite robots came from this year. Autonomous was useless. 2006 AIM HIGH - Fun game with the best autonomous FIRST ever had because it was so important to win it (at least until 25's alliance disproved that on Einstein in the semis) 2010 -BREAKAWAY - Pretty cool game. The endgame was pretty awesome. 469's robot made it a must watch moment. 2014 ARIAL ASSIST- Better game than it gets credit for when you see it played by team that know what they're doing. The penalties ruined alot of it. 2008 OVERDRIVE - Fun game when played well. Unbearable to witness when not. 2003 STACK ATTACK- Two completely different games in one. The main game no one could really play because it was impossible to protect your stacks outside of making a backdoor deal with the other alliance and too many points were given to the brutal king of the hill endgame that made teams ignore the main part of the game and made people be violent to one another. 2007 RACK AND ROLL - The Rack had to be the most destructive field element in the history of FIRST. If you got your robot snagged in it you could waste a good amount of time trying to safely remove your robot from it or risk damaging your robot trying to get out. Teams were very very violent that year as the championship elims shown. 2011 LOGOMOTION - Not a truly bad game but the endgame was so frustrating. 2005 TRIPLE PLAY - Given that my team won our first regional ever playing this game I should love it but it never really clicked with me. I'm not sure why. 2009 LUNACY - It was like watching snails joust. Better to watch on field level than up in the stands. 2002 ZONE ZEAL - The only game that got considerably worse during the elims which was basically a race to the goal and them a couple minutes of tug of war. |
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Reserving my comments to the four recent games since I've been involved:
1 - Rebound Rumble - Easy to follow / straight-forward auto / excellent end-game...AND I LIKED THE COOPERTITION BRIDGE! ...There...I said it! 2 - Aerial Assist - Again, fun to watch / exciting matches / Negative: too destructive and match outcomes dependent upon major foul points 3 - Ultimate Ascent - Negatives: Complex from a viewer standpoint / Horrible real-time scoring / End game did not "mesh" well with the rest, and was too difficult to do well 4 - Recycle Rush - Negative: All or Nothing Autonomous means that any unplanned "dead robot" will result in zero points. Only the very best teams will have a potentially "game-changing" auto. |
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For me (note that I'm a strategist), it's Aerial Assist, followed closely by Ultimate Ascent. It seems to me that they've been the most exciting when played at a high level; Einstein last year was one of the most unbelievable series of matches I've ever experienced.
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My favorite by far is 2005. It was simple and easy to explain to spectators, and still had a challenge to it. Plus you still had the element of suspense when teams got to 15+ tetras on the center goal. You never knew if you were going to knock the stack down. It was like a giant game of Jenga in the last few seconds.
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I think my personal favorite is probably 2012. It was fun to play and easy for observers to understand. For exciting match play, 2005 ranks pretty high. It was so easy for their to be big score changes really fast. (You complete one or two rows and take one or two away from you opponents.) On second thought, I think 2006 was probably just as good (and accessible to observers) a game as 2012, it's just that our robot was not as good in 2006 as in 2012.
The great thing is I have never gone to an FRC competition and not had fun. There have been plenty of times when I was frustrated and had fun, was elated and hand fun, was annoyed and had fun... but I have always had fun. Already some people have identified my least favorite game (Lunacy) as their favorite. Which is part of what makes FIRST cool. My initial reaction to the game this year was a resounding "meh" or something like close to it. But I have still been happy, entertained and engaged through the build season. Every time I have been underwhelmed by a game on kickoff day the reality has been an improvement. |
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Minus the problems with reffing, I'd say Aerial Assist is my clear favorite. After that, Overdrive or Ultimate Ascent.
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I can't really comment on 2011 or 2012 as I wasn't involved with FIRST at all during those 2 years... but my rankings since 2005 would be:
2007 - Love placing games. good strategy and climbing onto alliance partners was awesome 2014 - excellent strategy game and fun to watch with teams who knew what they were doing 2005 - Lifting heavy game pieces well over 10' was pretty cool, especially as a rookie; crowds had no idea what was going on or what the final score would be 2013 - fun fast paced game with a difficult and exciting end game 2006 - was fun at the time but compared to more recent games there really wasn't much to it 2010 - soccer ew...but really, i liked the end game and the bumps made things entertaining 2008 - unless you were driving it was pretty boring 2009 - ... |
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2005 - Tough Challenge, good strategy, switch to 3v3
2007 - AMAZING for Strategy 2006 - I really liked the way they did different periods. 2013 - Pyramids!?!?! 2012 - interesting 2010 - Soccer and 469 + 1114 How did that alliance loose!!!?!?! 2014 - Really good set of matches on Einstein 2011 - Best Auto End game was worth way too much points 2008 - So Confusing 2009 - I never really liked bumper cars. |
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I guess I'm the only one here that preferred 2010 Breakaway over the rest. I don't mind a little physicality in a game, I think it adds to the excitement for the spectators.
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My favorite games have to be the past two years, Ultimate Ascent and Aerial Assist, in that order.
They were both games that were exciting to watch, and had a variety of strategies that could win the game. I like games where an inferior Alliance can beat a technically superior Alliance by playing the game intelligently, but robot skill still matters. With that in mind, I prefer games that give the advantage to the offense rather than the defense, and as such my favorite games are as follows: Ultimate Ascent Aerial Assist Breakaway Rebound Rumble Aim High Overdrive Logomotion Rack and Roll Raising the Bar (Everything else) |
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I've only been on FIRST for 3 years, so my favorites go as such:
2014 Aerial Assist. Gosh was it fun. When driving you were having fun and able to work with other teams and last minute moves could mean a win or loss for your alliance (I was the operator and in one of my alliance's semi-finals matches I released a truss shot right before the timer went off and it gave us the extra points to win the match... you could say I was excited :p ). 2015 Recycle Rush. I think this year is going to be a good one. I think that it will be more strategy and selectively choosing alliances. Especially in the playoffs when top seeded alliances will probably go for teams that can do what their robot can't instead of three amazing robots that could do the same exact thing and one being downgraded. I like that your robot almost has to have a specialty to do well. Should be good. 2013 Ultimate Ascent. I don't know, I didn't love this one. It was more of an in the air game than down on the robots' level (shooting frisbees high with no passing or such interaction like Aerial Assist). It is definitely my least favorite so far. |
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I have participated in every game since 2001, and here are my thoughts on the games that I have observed.
Ultimate Ascent (2013) and Rebound Rumble (2012) were heads and shoulders above the games that came previously (or since). Excellent mix of scoring challenges, a good offense-defense balance, linear scoring, a nice mix of autonomous challenges, fun to watch, AMAZING endgames, some mobility challenges to consider (going under/over obstacles), worthwhile vision challenges, relatively easy to explain. Oh, and relatively open parts utilization rules compared to prior seasons. Some nits to pick (like the Coopertition Bridge aspect in 2012, and the fact that climbing should have been worth more points in 2013), but all around excellent games. Next I put Aim High (2006). It was a simple high volume shooting game, and the first time the vision challenge was worthwhile. FIRST Frenzy (2004) was a nightmare to explain, but it was a fantastically intricate challenge with many ways to score and led to highly varied designs. Triple Play (2005) had an elegantly simple game mechanic (tic tac toe) and was always exciting to watch (though they should have done something different with the endgame). Breakaway (2010) was a great idea, but would have been executed better with more lenient robot rules regarding ball possession. Rack N Roll (2007) too often degenerated into a defense-fest, but it was a nice scoring challenge and a really interesting endgame. Would have been better with linear scoring and some sort of mechanism for limiting defense. Overdrive (2008) was exciting to watch, but a little too simplistic for my liking. Would have been better with an additional game piece or a more heavily emphasized endgame objective. Aerial Assist (2014) was awesome during Championship eliminations, and painful to watch just about any other time. The rules led to too much referee subjectivity, the autonomous challenge was such that you were better off not to try than to try and fail, and 4 out of 6 robots had no offensive objective at any given time, leading to scrums. I maintain that the game would have been MUCH more interesting if the truss had been only 18" off the ground :) Logomotion (2011) remedied the defense balance of 2007, but maybe a little bit too much. The endgame challenge was the worst that FIRST has ever given us, and the scoring system was terrible. The IRI rule changes made the game a little more palatable. Stack Attack (2003) had the original autonomous mode, and some interesting strategic aspects due to the nontraditional scoring mechanism, but was once again totally broken by having too much defense (and said nontraditional scoring mechanism). Zone Zeal (2002) was a stump pulling contest. Lunacy (2009) was like watching children play rugby. Diabolical Dynamics (2001) is alone at the bottom because without robots interacting, who cares? (I will not rate Recycle Rush until after the season, but you can probably infer my opinion from my ranking of similar games...) |
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For me, it's Ultimate Ascent (2013). Nothing else comes close.
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1.) Ultimate Ascent
- Huge mix of robot designs and challenges (shooting, climbing, picking up off floor, etc.) - Very exciting to watch; lots of robot movement and action 2.) Logo Motion - Minibot challenge was fun to design and work with - Fun game to watch 3.) Rebound Rumble - Many different cool robot designs - Triple balancing was very exciting to watch |
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I've only done 1 other competition which was Ultimate Ascent in 2013. It was outstanding and changed my outlook on how I was going to plan the rest of my life. So I'd have to say Ultimate Ascent.
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2011 best endgame, 2009 best feild... or perhaps...
Seriously, 2013 easy. Best field, main game, game piece, best rule set, and best overall. The Frisbee shooter is still the coolest thing in our shop, and the ammo doesn't wear out or deflate. 2012 for best endgame and 2nd best field, balancing on the bridge was incredibly fun. |
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I've been in FRC since 2009, and coached FTC for the last few years. I've looked into past games, but my favorite has to be....
2013-14 FTC Block party This game (from my viewpoint) was perfect. Rookies could contribute to winning alliances by driving forward (onto the ramp) in autonmous, and then spin the flag in the endgame. Easy points that impact the game, but don't break it. Teams that could do more could hang for a few more points than spinning the flag, but that still could be outscored by a team that scored a lot of blocks. And just scoring blocks wouldn't be enough to beat an alliance that did a combination of tasks. Autonomous modes could be as simple as scoring into a container and parking on the ramp, or going for the IR container and juking the opposing robots from blocking you from the ramp. Matches at the highest level of competition were really exciting. Both teams had to score as many blocks as they could or they'd lose. If they missed the flag or a hang they lost. The division finals in the Iowa super regional had two double hangs in a match. TL;DR This game was just as hard for rookies as it was for veterans. Most importantly, EVERY PART OF THE GAME WAS IMPORTANT. I have yet to see a game as well balanced as Block party. |
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I like games where we dont kill ourselves during the build season.
2013 and 2014 were fairly easier for us compared to many other years. 2006 Aim High, by far my most favorite game. |
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I agree with Glenn, Aim High was a great game. Especially when played at IRI -- oh, the carnage in that final! I enjoyed the trip my team (931) made to Waterloo that year. Great regional with outstanding volunteers.
I also liked the drama of Toriod Terror (1997), when robots could topple at any moment while attempting insanely high lifts. |
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My favorite game would probably be 2011's Logomotion, although the endgame was unbelievably unbalanced and usually accounted for more than half a teams total score the concept of the game and the variety of robots that were shown made it a true spectacle to watch and truly achieved FIRST's goal of using STEM to creatively solve problems. It's really unfortunate when a game lends itself to one static design and doesn't allow for much creativity.
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Here's my ranked list of the top 4 games:
For me, there are three main goals for each game. In no particular order, they are excitement to watch/play, quality of game (variety of robots, balanced scoring, no really dumb rules), and easy to understand/explain quickly. 1). 2013- Ultimate Ascent This game was the second most exciting game I have ever watched and had a huge variety of roles for teams to fill. Only a small minority of teams could actually do everything, and almost everybody had to make tradeoff decisions. Teams could be cyclers, floor loaders, full court shooters, 30 point climbers, dumpers, 10 point climbers, defense, blockers, or any combination of the roles. The game itself was very simple - frisbees in goals give you points with more points for the higher goal and climbing the tower gives you points. Defense was a little risky to play due to safe zones and strict climb interference penalties, so many teams focused on scoring points. 2). 2014- Aerial Assist This was really one of the best games that FIRST has come up with. It's super simple, has tons of strategy, and was incredible to watch in St. Louis. I spent a ton of time just watching matches this year. Every weekend, I watched events, and you wouldn't have been able to pull me away from watching the matches in St. Louis. It's so far ahead of all the other games in many ways, but sadly had three huge flaws - it was not well refereed, had ridiculous penalties, and did not play very well with lower tier teams. 3). 2012- Rebound Rumble Einstein was terrible this year, but the Archimedes finals with the Canadian alliance and 67's alliance was incredible to watch. This game just worked. It's hard to explain why exactly, but I felt that the GDC spent many hours working through how the game would be played at each level of competition and adjusted point values, the difficulty of balancing, the difficulty of crossing the field, and the number of balls so that every event would be exciting. 4). 2006- Aim High This ranks below Rebound Rumble simply because it didn't have as good of flow. The game periods and weird offense/defense rules weren't my favorite, but I really liked the idea of shooting balls. This year's game isn't a favorite of mine yet. I haven't seen it played yet, but the seniors on our team aren't too happy with it yet. They've been anxious to get a game that doesn't include collecting round things from the floor and throwing them into to hole located above the opposing teams alliance station, but this was not the arm/stacking game they were looking for. However, I'd love to be proved wrong about this year, but robot to robot interaction just seems like such a critical part of FIRST that I can't imagine a game without it! |
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My favorite is 2013 pretty closely followed by 2014. What made them both great is that it was easier to design basic robots that were still competitive. This meant that there were more functioning (competitive) robots on the field which is a huge improvement over other years games. (i'm a little worried about this year in this respect)
2014 had the best auto and endgame of any recent year. The only reason it doesn't have the best actual matches was because of roughness and weird foul rules. 2013 had some of the best robot design and was also really fun to watch. It's also one of the only years where a robot can accomplish a task better than a human could (full court). It's nice having a game where the best alliance isn't the one made up of the most functional robots. Throwing stuff is also pretty cool to watch. |
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I am torn between 2012 Rebound Rumble and last year Aerial Assist as my favorite...both had outstanding competition which made it fun to watch and compete.
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Looking past some of the more popular recent games, my vote goes to 2006, Aim High. For games I haven't participated in, this is the most entertaining to watch.
And hey, the A-Bomb was pretty awesome too. |
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Hmm....For games i haven't participated in but I was a spectator for the entire season my vote goes to AIM HIGH. Honestly, it was awesome to watch each match. But for games I have participated in, i have to go with Rebound Rumble. For me that one sticks out at being fun to watch as well as being very unique.
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Other than that, I liked Triple Play and Rack n Roll - I guess I just like weird scoring opportunities. |
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End games that don't add to many points to your end result are the best end game. Too many teams get fixated on the end games sometime.
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2007
2012 2010 2014 2008 2013 2011 2009 |
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2014 2012 2008 2007 2013 |
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My list goes as follows:
2004 (FIRST Frenzy: Raising The Bar): Yeah, it was my rookie year so I was easily impressed--but the diversity of viable robots is unparalleled today, and those ball trays were just dope. 2012 (Rebound Rumble): This and Ultimate Ascent duke it out for the #2 spot, but I'm going to give it to Rebound Rumble. Both had exciting autonomous and teleop strategies, but Rebound Rumble's endgame was more consistently thrilling top to bottom while Ultimate Ascent could easily end with nobody going past Level 1 on the pyramid. 2013 (Ultimate Ascent): See above. 2006 (Aim High): Best autonomous mode they've ever done. The endgame wasn't too thrilling, but the action was great from start to finish. 2014 (Aerial Assist): This game would've been better with improved implementation (refs were overloaded for sure), but I still enjoyed it greatly. Lots of action, easy to track two balls, tons of strategy plays. You could explain it in a tweet. 2009 (Lunacy): Super fun engineering challenge. Human players might've been a little strong in the game, but the strategies to score while you protect your neck were very exciting. 2008 (FIRST Overdrive): Still a very enjoyable game, but I think Aerial Assist did launching exercise balls better and Rebound Rumble did limited human player control in autonomous better. 2011 (Logomotion): Slide this one notch up if you're playing under IRI rules. The game concept was fun, but the minibots just got out of hand. When you're expecting to smoke two $30-something motors every single match just to have a hope at winning, there's a problem. 2007 (Rack 'N Roll): Some cool elements here, but the dedicated rampbot with nothing to do until the last 30 seconds harmed it. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. (And this was also the year BaneBots gearboxes came in the kit. Remember that saga?) 2005 (Triple Play): This was the first game I ever coached in. From the driver station or from the stands, it was murderous to tell who was winning at a glance. 2010 (Breakaway): Low scores, 99% of robots look the same due to high bumpers and limited ball control, few hangs and all of what, two suspensions all year? I watched the eliminations at IRI and didn't get thrilled. Next. |
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My favorite games (that I attended an event for) are listed below. I personally like games where all the robots can contribute equally (or close to it) to the completion of the strategy.
2014: I loved the roles that each robot took in an alliance took to make it score, and the strategy was open enough that a non high-scoring alliance partner could still contribute to the game. 2010: Similarly, at least in what I can remember from this game, match strategy was how all the seemingly similar robots could differentiate themselves. 2013: Again, all the robots on an alliance could do different things, and could still pull off a win, but the minimum you needed to do this year to be competitive was higher that the last two years. 2011: This game was alright, but for the most part, the third robot (even on Einstein alliances) would almost exclusively play defense, and maybe would have one of the minibots. 2012: I never liked this game, as soon as I saw the kickoff, I knew the game sucked. The coopertition bridge can go rot in some unpleasant place. I don't even remember what a third robot could do other than drive on the wide configuration so the triple balance was easier. Even Einstein was a disappointment. Based on this, I think this year could be a good game, but will probably depend on how deep the field is. |
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I've only been around since 2008, but from what I hear and watch from the past years, my favorite all time games are:
2014 2005 2007 1999 2013 Least favorite are: 2002 2010 2009 2004 1995 |
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