Re: This year's "game" is a job, not a game
 

"Winning makes it more fun" -- unknown Mentor.

Re: This year's "game" is a job, not a game
 

Honestly, I don't think the best word to describe this year's competition is "Job," or "game." The best one-word description that I can think of is "challenge."

Before I go on to rant, I'll define a few things.
According to Mariam-Webster...

Game- activity engaged in for diversion or amusement, often involving strategy and/or competition
Challenge- a stimulating task or problem OR a summons that is often threatening, provocative, stimulating, or inciting

Think about it. In earlier years, apart from Rebound rumble's center bridge, a successful team won not by not necessarily beating the game per se, but by beating the enemy alliance. 2013, most of 2012, 2011, and especially 2014 were all games that were generally considered more fun to watch, and focused more on strategy and competition instead of provoking a problem. Sure, designing a great robot is no small feat for any competition, but in those years, strategy was a huge part of the game, and the robots directly competed against each other for victories. Those competitions fit the "game" definition more than the "Challenge" definition.

Fast forward to 2015. Sure, this year's game is fun to play, and teams do compete against each other and develop strategy like FIRST has emphasized for a long while, but it's who, or in this case, what, teams competed against that drove me to my conclusion. In this game, teams didn't compete against each other in qualifications for the most part. Often, they helped each other. However, they did compete against the field. The challenge really was out to kill this year: the landfill is always cluttered with litter, the tote chute is unreliable, and the cans are relatively difficult to grip and lift to scoring levels. No matter how one slices it, the word "problem" or "puzzle" certainly fit the bill here.

This really shouldn't be a surprise. FIRST has been hinting at this for years now that teams should be working with each other instead of against each other through Gracious Professionalism, and this challenge, as I see it, was a manifestation of those values. A challenge like this was almost inevitable.

Re: This year's "game" is a job, not a game
 

I have a feeling that the reason robots cannot cross the step is because last year in AA, there were so many bad calls on the referee side for pinning, ramming, or "repeated ramming", as well as the overwhelmingly large numbers of teams that were aggressive in competition.

I predict bumpers and alliance competition will be back next year.

Re: This year's "game" is a job, not a game
 

We really hope soo

Re: This year's "game" is a job, not a game
 

Win, Lose, Draw, we have fun. .[/quote]

Our team continues to grow each year because we try to make learning fun... this year's challenge is no different. On one hand, our student's liked the idea that there wasn't any 'defensive bots' on the field to worry about. They found prototyping, designing, building and programming challenging and enjoyable. On the other hand, once they started competing, they found some less exciting aspects to this year's game. Really good teams (those stacking 5 or 6 totes with a bin) were encouraging some alliances to 'stay out of their way'; coopertition stacks were discouraged by many teams because it was difficult to do so; and the lack of defense (at least in prior years they could at least drive around and cause some chaos) or rely on robots in their alliance to do so. This year those that built a really efficient robot are virtually unstoppable because there isn't any defense (okay litter sometimes got in the way). Our students are continually problem-solving to make our robot perform and pick up reliably (we'll see at our next competition...can't wait.. should be awesome). But when all said and done... our team had a really good time and they made the best out of the experience.

Re: This year's "game" is a job, not a game
 

An important difference between 2014 and 2015: Many fewer teams can compete at the same level as 1114 this year vs. last year. The proof is in the distribution of the OPRs. The OPRs are much more skewed this year than in the past. That reflects the increases technical difficulty. It also makes for a much less competitive game. Lack of true competition eventually turns off spectators. Ask both golf (Woods) and track & field (Bolt).

Re: This year's "game" is a job, not a game
 

What I have appreciated and enjoyed about this year's challenge is how many different approaches can be taken to solving the same problem. A previous poster said "They're all forklifts" but that is not even really true, 1114 is not a forklift-based design and kudos to them for coming up with a machine that solves the problem with such speed and consistency. Watching their robot in action is mesmerizing.

Even among the "forklift-class" robots, there is such variation in each design and it is fun to see which designs work better than others. It is neat to see how all the teams took the same functional requirements and distilled them into mostly the same operational parameters, but implemented them slightly differently.

This does mean that it is a "breadth" of interesting things that doesn't have a lot of "depth". That is, once you've seen a robot in action, you know pretty much exactly what to expect in every match going forward.

Re: This year's "game" is a job, not a game
 

I'm going to somewhat disagree with this, or at least add another explanation that also contributes to the increased OPR disparity this year.

No Defense (or No Defence in 1114's case)

Every year prior, the big name teams would have a gigantic target on their back, which invited every team to try to do their best to stop them. In years past, 1114 would see waaaaay more defense played against them than any middle of the road team. That naturally keeps the OPRs a little tigher: as soon as teams see you breaking away from the pack, they'll defend you harder to bring you back.

This year, there's nothing you can do to slow 1114 down. Therefore, for the first year ever they've had unimpeded access to do whatever they want to do. I'd almost argue that if defense was banned every year, there would have been similar disparities in OPR in the past.

Re: This year's "game" is a job, not a game
 

The nature of this year's game is also a very valid reason for the step.

Think about it, how could anyone put up any substantial scores if after every time a team made a stack, the opposing alliance knocked it over? The rules against "puppy guarding" stacks would probably be better off avoided through the use of the step.

Re: This year's "game" is a job, not a game
 

Another example of skewed data is the range of Auto points being earned this year. Either you're a team with a 20 pt auto (there tend to be 1 or maybe 2 teams per regional this year) or you receive no auto points...maybe if you get a good alliance the big 4 pts. At some regionals, if you take out the top two scoring auto teams, the average amount of auto pts. per team is less than one point. This only reinforces the idea of this game being a skills challenge, rather than a game.

Re: This year's "game" is a job, not a game
 

And here in FIRST we've never seen THAT before...::rtm::

Re: This year's "game" is a job, not a game
 

So maybe this has been said before, but I have a new perspective on this game after competing. Don't worry, I still think it's terrible.

Our team made an improbable run to the 8th alliance captain position and picked a solid alliance of three middle tier robots. Our strategy was essentially to gamble that the three teams working together were worth more than the sum of their parts. 870 would make their usual capped stack of five, then cap one of our stacks of five. 1111 would get the center bins in autonomous, then go for their own capped stack, while we would go for two stacks of five. If 1111 had extra time, they could cap our second stack. It was far from a guarantee but it put the strengths of each partner together and made for our best shot out of the quarters. The main problem is that it requires perfect play from all 3 robots.

Two seconds into our autonomous mode of our first quarterfinal match, the power cable from the roboRio to our PDP wiggles loose as we hit the scoring platform, and we're out for the match, excluding 2 seconds of false hope in the middle of it. As you might expect, the entire strategy falls apart when one member of the alliance isn't there, and we were the team that created scoring opportunities for our partners.

Any other year, it's a tragic loss, but not an insurmountable one - you can win the next two to move on. But at this event, we were in a situation where, two seconds after our very first match started, it immediately became impossible for us to win the regional. The score we would need to move on after getting nearly no points that match was impossibly large, and not even the best teams at the event ever scored that many points.

I did my best to keep everyone's spirits up and rally the alliance to score as high as they could their second match, saying it wasn't impossible to move on, but a few of the drivers just knew that we were going to be out on the field playing a completely pointless match. The energy of the alliance was down, and everyone was at least a little rattled from the previous match, so we didn't play optimally match 2 either. Not that it mattered; again, it was a completely pointless match.

I don't think there's anything less inspiring than having your fate sealed by an unforeseeable hiccup, then being forced to play a pointless match that leaves you no chance of advancing. We installed that wire correctly, we performed the standard pull test and solidly connected the wire at home. Short of running a multimeter to every wired connection on our robot before every match, there's nothing we could have done to prevent this. And as soon as it happened, it was over. There was no way to win the event anymore, the second match was just for show.

I gave this game a lot of chances - I thought it was a very fun engineering challenge. I wasn't my normal cynical self during build season, hoping things would work out. But that elimination tournament was like a kick to the gut. Have you ever lost a regional in the first two seconds of eliminations? Should that even be possible? I really think it shouldn't be. This game would be dramatically improved if the best 2 of 3 match scores were what determined if you moved on or not. There's no room for error - on your part, on the field's part, or just plain bad luck.

Re: This year's "game" is a job, not a game
 

The scoring mechanic they took is normally used in single player games. A game where the goal is to rack up a highscore independent of an opponents interaction is a very interesting choice when the past pattern points at it being more and more spectator friendly. One thing this game accomplished well is the diversity it brought in for robot designs.
Start with scoring and that you need to create stacks of totes, yes it is one scoring mechanic but there are many ways it can be accomplished. Internal stacking, external stacking. Mix in the different ways you can gather resources to score and you have all sorts of ways the game can be played.
Last years game was very linear in how it was played and that was really boring walking through the pits and seeing roughly the same thing over and over again.

Also personal belief.
Numerical values are not and should not be used as direct reflection on a games health (fun, difficulty, audience appeal).

Re: This year's "game" is a job, not a game
 

It's hard to argue with the fact that this game is better with the step than it would be without the step.

That's a reason to trash the concept, not add the step.

Re: This year's "game" is a job, not a game
 

If that's what you get out of "Gracious Professionalism", then I think you're misunderstanding what FIRST is trying to say. Although hey, they put out this game, maybe I'm the one that doesn't get them. Wouldn't be the first time...