Do we want another game without defense?
 

Recycle Rush had to be one of the most controversial games since 2009. Separating the field and eliminating defense was a bold decision, and we must now ask ourselves: was this decision the right direction for FIRST?

Let's start with some of the complaints that we originally had. The game would be boring with the lack of defense. This was true for week 1, but as teams made final adjustments, they started to contribute more to their alliances. With the lack of defense, teams could spend less time repairing their robots and more time making improvements. Watching teams constantly improve is very exciting to see, and is a major component of FIRST.

Autonomous mode would be overpowered.
Scoring in autonomous mode was useful, but never was overpowered. Teams that could score 20-28 points in auto were rewarded, but would still have to score their best to win.

Teams can't upset or make comebacks.
This year was rather predictable. In Michigan, 17/18 districts the #1 alliance won. Even at MSC the #1 alliance won. This was reflected at most regionals. However, 4 out of the 8 alliances that won their divisions weren't #1. Upsets can happen. As for comebacks, the #1 alliance in Archimedes scored only 43 points in their first semi-final. They scored 197 in their next, but not enough to bring their average up. It was in their last match when they scored 274 and went on to win their division. Comebacks and upsets did happen.

Now let's look at some of the positives that came from a lack of defense.

Teams could build unique and creative robots
Without robots clashing against each other, teams could build outside of traditional frame perimeter restrictions. Back in 2010, there were two robot designs: 469 and a box. There were very few teams that could have creative designs. This year, however, every team could be a 469. There were teams without drive trains, with unique drive trains, and even dual robots. Teams could focus more on solving the challenge than surviving it.

Teams were competing against themselves, rather than each other.
Teams had to constantly evolve to compete. The high score from last week would be the average for the next. Teams would compete against each other at events, but learn from each other when they're not. Some saw others use a tethered ramp, then proceeded to double their average at their next event.

Scoring was more visible.
In previous years, scoring was in real-time. Soccer balls and Basket balls were automatically counted as they were scored. Frisbees were stored in the goal; the final score being announced after they counted everything. With Recycle Rush, totes stayed (hopefully) where they were scored. People looking at a field could easily see which alliance was scoring more. This is a small nitpick, but looking at a row of perfect stacks your team put up is pretty cool.

I would like to now address the cans in the room.

Recycle Rush was an experiment of trying to have a "competition" without defense. Or that's what it looks like. Recycle Rush had a single element of defense: can wars. If you look at Einstein, the alliances that won were the ones that won the can wars. Once an alliance lost the can war, they lost. They couldn't score anywhere close to the can race winners. This led to matches being determined in the first few seconds. Those matches were still exciting to watch, but you knew who would win.

Recycle Rush was an experiment. I personally enjoyed watching this game. I loved seeing all the creative and unique ways of solving the challenge. Teams could learn from each other and try new things, preparing them for years to come. I would love to see future games without defense. However, if we see another defenseless game, I want it to be free of defense. No can races, no stray litter, just teams scoring their best.

So what do you think, would you like to see a split field in future years, or go back to more outplays and upsets?

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

no step please. not again.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

On contrary to "Teams can't upset or make comebacks," at the two regionals I went to, the winning alliances were the #6 and #7. Prior to this year I had never been to one where an alliance outside the top 3 won.

I loved Recycle Rush, and I feel the awesomely creative robot designs are more fun to watch than a game with defence. What other game would have harpoons and multiple robots?

If there's an issue I have with this game, it's the average points ranking system, not the lack of defense.

But by the poll it seems I'm in the minority on this one.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

I can't say yes/no, but I would say not back to back. There is a place for another later though.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

I had no major issues with this game, except that it encouraged me to root for others to fail so that my alliance could move on (which happened a lot time at worlds: the Curie finalist alliance of 3663 1574 2046 and 5586 got there because other teams messed up big time and we only had minor screw ups. that and canburglaring). however, I really liked 2014, where it was easy for a team with few resources to do well by getting really good at defense. In all, I dont really want another year of no defense next year, but I dont think it would be harmful for this to happen every once in a while

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

No defense is fine as long as there's more interactions. You can't tell me an FRC sized "Clean Sweep" wouldn't be fun.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

I personally dislike not having defense very much, but if FIRST is going to do a game with no defense again, they need to have only 2 robots on each side of the field. However, this would mean that everyone would get fewer matches at each event they attend. So...defense, please!

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

That bothered me rooting for others to fail.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

How? How can it possibly be exciting if the ending is already ruined for you? If someone spoils your favorite TV show, you're not going to extract as much enjoyment out of the dramatic ending that you would otherwise.

I think a good way to judge the excitement of a game is to watch Einstein and watch the crowd and the people there. This year, the crowd was completely dead, as far as I could see/hear. This was a far cry from any previous year, where sometimes it felt like a minor earthquake in the arena during the finals.

This was due, in my opinion, to exactly what you stated. The crowd knew the match would be decided in the first second of auto, and barring major screwup, they were guaranteed a win. It felt to me like, in football, if the team that loses the cointoss has all their players kneecapped and sent back onto the field with one less guy.

Also,

I do not agree with the premise behind your statement. The "favorite" is not always about seed. At regionals, where scouting quality is lower, the alliance that will obviously win may not be the #1 seed. Often the 1 seed just won schedule roulette and picks a bad first pick. You could take one look at the alliances and say "Whelp the #? seed is stacked, it's all over" and be right most of the time.

At the district championship level of competition, the #1 seed holds much higher value because the scouting is far higher quality and the top team might not just be the schedule roulette winner. The 1 seed would usually pick the right teams and be the best alliance, therefore getting a near guaranteed blue banner. In four of the five District championships, the #1 seed took home the trophy. The exception was PNW, in which the #1 seed lost in the finals.

I promised in January to hold my judgement until I saw this game played. What I saw was incredibly creative and awesome machines playing an atrocious and boring game.

On to 2016.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

+1

The difference is that in previous years, upsets could occur because of smart gameplay and well-placed defense. This year, upsets happened when the favorite to win accidentally toppled a stack over or broke entirely.

These upsets were often because the favorite alliance had one bad match in quarters or semis that was impossible to make up, due to advancement by average score, not because the lower seeded alliance figured out a smart way to stop the opponents from scoring or other cool strategy. Strategy at the highest level of play was "Win autonomous can battles, make stacks on your own."

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

This was a very fun game to play in vex and I'm certain it would a great one to do in FRC. Autonomous ranged anywhere from basic drive forward, to a complex series of movements going about the field collecting and then scoring pieces in the auto period. Also in this game defense is an option. Should something like this come to frc, at least 1 team (most certainly more) would make a robot that could put up large wall to defend their side.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

You nailed it. Robots could be big, and have complex mechanisms, making them unique, and game changers without needing to worry about it being knocked off by a defensive robot from the opposing alliance.

However, defense is what makes the game fun from the point of the crowd in my mind. Its not just about scoring, its also about preventing the other team to score.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

It saddens me that the dominant form of play was so segregated. I still feel, even after Einstein should have shown me better, that there was room in Recycle Rush for collaborative alliances that build stacks in an interesting way: like 1986/233/4575 in Queen City, 1089/365/423 @ MAR Champs, or 1325/3683 here: https://youtu.be/Dd-SQmZg8tQ?t=71

Looking back at the game (heck, even looking at the game in January), I see potential for all these collaborative roles; bin managers, cappers, stack movers, immobile stackers - but none of it was competitive enough.

It seems like a real shame. However, I can't find a strong relation to the lack of defense. Was it that teams, when they don't have to think about making a machine quite so robust, try to do more?

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

I personally liked the approach to Aim High: limit only 2 robots to defense for a portion of the match. Defense is good, but too much of turns the game into a robot sumo. I think there's a middle ground which is superior to unlimited defense and no defense.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

The biggest problem with the game for me was the fact that playoffs still used the average system. One bad game in quarters when you are still trying to find the best strategy with your alliance. I understand the average scores for the rankings, but i would rather see the playoffs going back to the old elimination format.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

Agreed. There were exceptions to this at the highest levels, but very few. I think a big part of this was more that there weren't a lot of extremely competitive role-players. 27 being the obvious exception, I can't think of many robots that were exceptional cappers or stackers. Most stackers could make almost as many capped stacks as uncapped stacks.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

Yeah, but the lowest seed to make Einstein was 4 (and the rest were 1 or 2). And that 4 seed was 368 picking 359, so I wouldn't really call that a major upset. Unless the top seed had some major disaster (or the best landfill player in a human player saturated division was playing from #2) there wasn't very much stopping the top.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

Same here - not as a "new normal", but as one of the ways to shake things up and make sure that everyone's solving the challenge, not just rehashing what they did the past few years because they know it.

And there were definitely some upsets at the high levels - on Carson, the #1 alliance (lead by 254 The Cheezy Poofs) was eliminated in quarters and the #5 alliance went to Einstein. A tangled auto and a stack placed atop litter toppled another in the first round, and a robot fell over the second during auto - end of season. Once on Einstein, the other top alliance anticipated prior to CMP (148 Robowranglers allied with 1114 Simbotics) went down in semis - it was the #4 alliance that took the gold and the #5 that took silver. While I did not notice any 3/7 victories, I did see several 4/6 can splits which were won by the team with only four RCs.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

The two seed alliance from Carson went to Einstein, not the five seed.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

From a driver prospective, this game had defense. No there weren't any robots physically touching, but defense is stopping the other team from scoring. The first, obvious way to prevent the other team from scoring was the RCs on the step. If you could successfully obtain 3 cans from the step and score two of them (with the original 3 cans as well) you won the match. It's a defensive strategy. The other defensive method was noodle throwing. If you don't plan on using your 4th robot, you can pick a team who has a human player that can throw noodles. Getting a noodle stuck in an opposing robot could potentially disable a mechanism, and stack placements change depending on noodles on the field (look at finals match 2 I had to drop a stack of 6 with a can in front of the step because a noodle was in the way). So in my opinion, I believe this game does have defense, but I do like the full contact push the other robots away style of defense.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

I find that although this was a much more boring game, the robots became more exciting. 2014 had plenty of robot designs, but it was nothing compared to this year. Now for teams this is really exciting - I think I squealed when I saw 900's cheesecaked harpoons. However, for spectators this has less of an effect I think. The difference between a field with similar or varied robots is fairly negligible to someone who doesn't know much about FRC robots imo. Still, it was incredible to see so many different, unorthodox designs compared to other years. Not only that but these robots could win - they weren't simply gimicks (148 is the best example). I feel that the lack of defense/interfernce and multitude of game pieces/tasks really created an incentive for teams to think out of the box. In theory every game should do this, but it's definitely not easy.

On the other hand, this game could be really boring to watch. Every game trends towards being boring in the first few weeks then becoming insane on Einstein, but I feel this year that just wasn't the case. Week 1 and 2 events (especially districts, oh man) looked pretty much like this: a tote would be dispensed, a team would take 30 seconds trying to put it on the platform, and repeat (this was another issue: teams without a gamespec element were pretty much screwed). Many teams could make small stacks but that was about it. Einstein suffered a similar fate, albeit at a much higher tier. Each alliance would make 6 or 7 6-stacks in their own little areas, and there was very little variation between matches. The obvious exception is the can stealing battles: they were great to watch. Our 35 second tug-of-war in Archimedes playoffs was the best part of any match this whole season. Einstein was determined by who got the best can-stealing selections - this is why the 1023/2338 alliance got knocked out immediately; their can-stealers just weren't fast enough. And even then, the can-stealing created an arms race that becomes a little insane imo. Karthik said something at his seminar about how the minibot arms race a few years ago got to the point where teams were using dry ice to speed up their mini bots' motors. This arms race was probably less insane, but there was lots of surgical tubing involved still - a dangerous amount of potential energy. I feel this arms race wasn't as bad, but still could've created a disaster.

THIS one was especially bad. Now granted that comes with the upside (in my opinion, at least) of an average score system vs a win/loss system, but I hated rooting against other teams. I really miss last year when I could pick an alliance I wanted to win every match - this year we almost had to pray for our friends to drop stacks if they were competing for the same playoff spot as us.

My post strayed a quite a bit from the actual lack of defense aspcect of this game (oops!) but I really can't cast a vote. At the beginning of the season I would've voted a definite "no", but after this year's metagame evolved to accomadate the lack of defense I just can't. But I also won't vote "yes", because that just presented a whole SLEW of problems this year.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

Agreed. Einstein this year kinda dragged on and had nowhere near the hype as last year. Sure, the first 15 seconds were exciting, but after that I already knew what each robot would do - 1114, 2056, 118 would pretty much always make a beeline for the landfill, 330, 148 would head to the human player, etc. etc. to the point where each match seemed to be the same thing over and over. In past years, the possibility of defense by an opposing alliance has drastically changed an alliance's strategy. I didn't see much of that with this game :(

Also, like others have said, the QA system for playoffs is another huge problem from this year but that's for another thread :rolleyes:

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

I fell asleep during Einsteins and missed more than half of it. Part of that was sleep deprivation, but a lot of it was that the game was just that boring.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

I've always been a defensive-minded student/coach/alum (probably from watching too much football), so I disliked this year's game as a result. I felt it hurt mid-tier teams like my own that are typically not going to match powerhouses point-for-point, but have come close or beaten them by defensively sound strategy. It also seems to reduce the ferocity of the game and the interest level of the crowd.

So no, defense is important and we need it back.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

Without defense at all, no.

With unrestricted defense, no WAY!


The biggest problem with defense is that it has to be reffed--and that means that the refs have to make a judgement call on something that may or may not be a clear call.


I kind of like the "protected zones" model of defense prevention: If you're HERE, you are safe from defense. If you're not here, you are a target. Provided, of course, that the definition of HERE is something that's easy to see...

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

Agreed. Looking to sports, what defines a "forcible hit to a defenseless receiver" and what is a foul vs a yellow card are the most aggravating things as a fan - and certainly worse as a team member.

Making clear-cut rules would be nice, but it is incredibly difficult. Does damage constitute excessive force? If it does, then everyone's robots will be paper mache, and designed to take damage at the slightest blow and draw a foul. I think most would agree, though, that a full-speed charge into the extended arm of a robot that is not in a scoring position is excessive though, and with the variety of robots this becomes near impossible.

I agree with the use of defensive zones, or even allowing goaltending, as possible compromise solutions.

That said, nothing is quite as entertaining as full-force hits (with bumpers of course). Relaxing the bumper rules but bringing them back would help quite a bit. Perhaps a "bumpers at your own risk" rule with guidelines as to materials and precise construction, and then allowing teams to work out the areas of their robot that need to be bumpered.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

I prefer the '06-'07 bumper rules, myself. They were quite simple: You could have "standard" bumpers, or not. If you had them, they had their own weight limit. If you didn't, that was your choice. And you could cover as much or as little of the robot as you liked. '08 and '09 weren't bad, either--there was a certain percentage of the perimeter that had to be covered (though '09 forced a trailer hitch to fit in the uncovered percentage... ouch).

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

Thanks for the info. Didn't know that. 368 actually declined #3 1986, before choosing us.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

I liked it, actually. It made the game more dependent on design/ strategy and less on luck. It also removed the need for bumpers. There was overall less human involvement, which was good thing IMO.
On the other hand it also removed a lot of luck from the playoffs (although champs did not disappoint in that area!).

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

I completely disagree. If you lost the can war you lost the match. Every single Einstein match was decided by cans. I think the fact that the match was decided in the first second ruined the competitive aspect of the game.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

Yes!

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

While this is semi true in principal, you may be slightly pushing what was actually the case. The team that got the most cans (even on Einstein) didn't always win. Was it a huge benefit? Yes. But you still had to score stacks. It just so happens that many good stackers also had good can grabbers.

+1

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

I like this. Relaxed bumper rules might help encourage more creative designs like it did this year, but it might hurt younger teams who didn't build bumpers because it was a drain on their resources who really need some.
Perhaps teams should be required to have a full set of bumpers possible to use, but are not required to use them on the field.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

That's why I bolded scoring and addressed canburglars in another segment. Scoring, robot/tote/can sets, were nicely balanced. Canburglars though, completely determined matches. I agree with you on your opinion. Cans were worth so much that it was impossible to win if you didn't get half of them.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

What makes a game boring? The rules or the gameplay? I think if someone explained to me how basketball is played, I would think that it was shallow and boring, but the players do some incredible things to make it not boring and fun to watch. I found, naturally, that the more creative and effective the machines on the field were, the more fun it was to watch due to the focus being on how effective the offense was and not, like previous years, overcoming defense as well. The "typical" style of FRC game makes the game more exciting for a wider range of random robots during qualifications, but I'd be shocked to hear anyone say that the playoffs this year were any less exciting than years past.

In a way 2008 was similar to this game. Limited defense, less room to maneuver, and limited alliance interaction. I think games like this are refreshing every few years. I prefer games that resemble offesnive/defensive-style play, but I absolutely don't think "olympic trial-style" play should be eliminated from the FRC vocabulary.

It's all about keeping it fresh which the GDC has been doing for many, many years and my hat's off to them.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

This is so good I feel the need to change my senior yearbook quote.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

I don't think it's absolutely impossible to have a good game without defense, but I don't think FIRST's GDC is capable of it.

For example, Vex Clean Sweep did not have traditional robot interaction, yet it was an excellent game. Not that there wasn't defense, but it was more blocking and less pushing.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

I still think FTC's Block Party was the most balanced game FIRST has made for a while. Defense was an option, but at higher levels playing defense would lose you matches. You had to keep scoring, and there were many ways to score.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

I did enjoy not having to worry about full-speed ramming and other kinds of alliance interactions, but it definitely made the game less interesting.

I agree that an Aim High or "protected zone" model would be the way to go in the future if FRC wants to limit robot damage.

How I might adjust this year while keeping the base game still there?
-Eliminate the step, and make a single global landfill that both teams can access. Stacks still get made in completely-protected zones, but landfill tote acquisition would be a free-for-all. Maybe to compensate for the increased difficulty of competitive tote acquisition, make landfill totes worth double. Teams would have to be careful not to push landfill totes into the other alliance's protected area, or else they'd be inaccessible.
OR
-Allow robots to throw litter. This would increase the possibility and payoff of defensive strategies (load 10 into your robot, then launch them to be evenly spaced across enemy platforms), with zero risk of robot damage. Imagine a locked-and-loaded litter cannon aimed at a robot trying to lay down a stack, firing litter just as it looks like the opposing team is going to score.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

I tend to favor any sport that deviates from the American football paradigm of hurt or be hurt, and I suspect that some of this year's detractors really don't like it for that reason: they like the physical contact.

After all, this year was more a game of wits, wasn't it? If an alliance didn't win the match, it wasn't so much that they were blocked, but more because they didn't score enough points.

At the elite level, "defense" might have taken the form of an alliance not having enough cans - but those teams who saw that coming were the ones who excelled... not the ones with better defense.

I too didn't like this game at the beginning, but as it unfolded, I came to understand its brilliance. If nothing else, it shook things up: most likely, to prepare us for the water game :-)

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

It's not so much the physical contact: it is entirely possible to design a game with defense that _doesn't_ have physical contact of any kind. Large protected zones so that contact is optional or indirect ways to interact/interfere with the other alliance (like my littercannon idea above) open up a whole world of strategy.

Mathematically, you could say the problem many people had with this game is that the scores of the two alliances were entirely uncorrelated (until extremely elite-level play where canburglars mattered).

My least favourite games are those with the most-rewarding physical defense: 2003 (ramming), 2007 (ramming around the christmas tree) and 2009 (ramming on ice) were all not fun to watch as you had a kessler syndrome of broken robots turning into "defense specialists".

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

We were only 5 avg points shy from finals having only grabbed one can throughout semis.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

My biggest issue with the lack of defense is that the game actually got more boring as robots improved, because the best alliances had the exact same match every time, which was great for them but got kind of dull in the stands. At MSC, the winning alliance had a great game plan that they executed every time, and that's why they won. The thing being, once you had seen one of their matches, you'd seen them all. It was thrilling at first to see amazing alliances racking up high scores, but eventually it was just like watching an assembly line.

Should next year's game have no defense? No. I think it should be something they break out every once in while, incorporating what they've learned from this year, to give a change of pace.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

I think it's completely possible to have good games with no defense. It's all about the strategic options that the game makes available to teams. The best games are ones where there isn't one clearly superior strategy. When everybody is trying to do the same task, it quickly becomes obvious who the best is, and that's all around boring.

This is why I think Aerial Assist was a bad game. Every match consisted of three robots doing the exact same thing. One inbounder, one trusser, one scorer. If not holding ball, play defense. My proposal for improving AA would be allowing teams to have two balls in play at once. That would force teams to evaluate whether they want to take the offensive approach of bringing in two balls or the defensive approach of running double defense.

Recycle Rush really lacked any of this decision making. Grabbing the cans is an obvious best choice. Making stacks of 6 is an obvious best choice. Doing anything else will only hurt you. It makes the game feel like a 100m sprint.

So I don't think we need defense to have interesting games, as long as the strategies are unique match to match. In my opinion, defense without alternatives, defense with no opportunity cost, hurts games. On the other hand it can make the game more exciting if FIRST pulls it off right.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

I didn't think "doing the same thing" every match was at all boring. I found the consistency of many robots to be very inspiring. Watching 1023 do exactly the same thing through all of qualifiers was amazing. That's the kind of consistency I have never seen in FRC, and it's the kind of thing that will take you far, even if someone else can put up more points. There's something to be said for a machine that works that consistently under so many variables.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

Don't forget about descoring as a defensive game mechanic. FRC has never implemented this at in the modern era with their quest for automated scoring. However, it has been extremely successful in VEX. I see no reason it wouldn't also be successful in FRC.

Cheers, Bryan

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

I loved seeing the robots hit each other from 2014, it made the game so much more entertaining!! Without contact its much less fun to watch, not to mention that the game is won in the first 15 seconds (who ever gets the RB's)
Sooo......

WE NEED CONTACT!!!!!!!!

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

Recycle Rush promoted a holistic systems planning in ways that the two other games I have seen played did not. The better a team planned and thought in January the better they played at champs.

Even with the planning and thinking, though, some of the best teams in FRC either did not make it out of their division or failed the quarters on Einstein.

Logistically I did not like the split fields for Einstein. We were off to one side which made half of the matches unwatchable.

Eric

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

Personally, I was not a fan of the divided field. It took the element of competitive robot interaction on field out of the game, which was something I rather enjoyed seeing.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

I think there should be a defense-less game every 3-4 years, so each set of kids gets to understand the wonderful engineering potential of precision engineering under a controlled environment. Recycle Rush feels like an experiment in that regard, and I hope defense-less (and therefore bumperless and geometry-boundless) games are attempted again. Killough Drive on Einstein :ahh: - yes please!

I don't think RR is a good example overall due to the noodles and autonomous races. Noodles in cans were a great idea. Noodles on the field were just pointless given the reduced visibility of the field at high levels of play. In hindsight, if we replaced the noodles with ultra-light poof balls and made the cans have no lids, this could have been an awesome game. Bonus points for scoring your balls in the opponents' capped stacks, or some other such shenanigans. Negative points for knocking the opponent's stack over in attempting to do so.

For defense-based games, we're in a modern era of COTS 3-CIM gearboxes. Teams put little to no engineering into these things when they use them as the primary mechanism for defense. Unregulated drive train power simply means that the offense-based teams need to allot 5.4 more lbs to the drive train in order to beat the defensive teams to a point on the field - meaning the challenge for offense-based teams is even harder to accomplish due to less weight available. Bumpers, frames and hard-mounted objects must all withstand a few hundred Joules more during impacts (based upon 0.5*m*v^2 at 8' acceleration distance).

I love safe zones and exclusion zones on a field. Exclusion zones represent an area of the field where a team must explicitly design for it in order to gain access to it, such as 2010, 2012 and 2013. They can be a way to play mind games with particularly good defensive drivers and add a whole new plethora of strategic and match flow possibilities at high levels. They can be a way for a simple defensive robot to significantly delay an offensive robot which cannot contend with them at all. I'd much rather spend extra engineering energy on that type of defense avoidance than spending thoughtless money and weight on the drive train.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

Personally, I have always felt that a game based solely on how well robots can perform a task would be fantastic.
One thing that has really bugged me throughout the years is how a team could work incredibly hard for six weeks building a robot only to have it permanently rendered incapable of performing at the level it was intended to because of the "defensive" actions of another robot. (Yep, saw that in 2014.)

Now that I have seen a game where performance alone determined the outcome, I like it! That said, I know there is a place for defense. As many others have said in this thread, a game without defense is good, but not every year. So, yes I would like to see it again, just not right away.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

People love defense until someone decides to violently impose it upon their robot. Then it's not so awesome.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

I'm all for another game without direct defense, but a game with as little indirect defense as this year would be disappointing. Not having to design to withstand collisions (to the same degree as other years at least) gives teams the option to allocate additional weight and space to other mechanisms and strategies.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

I really liked the lack of size restrictions this year since it allowed teams to make very creative designs. If FIRST could make a game with defense/robot-robot interaction and no size restrictions, that would be really cool. A robot version of tennis, volleyball, or dodgeball could work.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

I think that a game without defense helps the students learn more than it does with defense. The reason is, last year when designing the robot, after every suggestion we had to evaluate if we thought it could survive constant beating during a regional. This year, we had to worry about that a lot less. In fact, we were able to be much more creative and even have a 5 foot arm sticking behind our robot that could pick up bins from the step without mining the landfill. Even if the same length/width rules were in place in a game with defense, we never would have been able to make that arm because it couldn't have survived being run into. FIRST is about the students, and I learned much more this year about engineering and programming than I did last year because of the creativity involved in this years game. Remember that the competition is where the students can go to show off what they've done, but the important part is what the students do up to that point. I would vote for the crappiest game ever if it means that the students on my team were to learn more.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

Nobody has to worry about durability in the real world right? :rolleyes:

However this year did present a different kind of challenge, which should be welcomed. Your team found that challenge to be more inspiring in some ways, which is great!

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

Traditional style defense:

• Gives robots with less effective (dare I say "failed"?) scoring mechanisms a way to contribute to their alliance.
• Lets teams reuse large chunks of successful engineering design from year to year. What's effective for pushing, pinning, and blocking one year tends to be transferable to next year's robot with minimal rework.

The first has value as a force for parity, maybe keeping some young teams from getting discouraged. But once past their rookie season most of the students have caught on that hearing "you play defense" during alliance match planning isn't usually a good thing.

The second has value too, rewarding the building of team competencies over the years, but that's traded off against parity.

My hope is when defense returns, as it certainly will, the GDC consider that ice hockey style contact defense is not the only kind there is. Billiards, shuffleboard, and even chess, for example, have defense, but with minimal pushing, shoving, and hitting. Defense does not have to mean the same problem and the same solutions year after year.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

I see both sides of the argument but at the beginning I would like to say that I would enjoy a game with defense. However I would like to say that I , in no way, think that this year's game was "lame". Sure there was no defense but it only forced people to think around it. Can grabbing was a form of defense although it only usually lasted the beginning of the match. I still enjoyed watching a game with minimal contact. It forced the robots to focus more on completing the task as opposed to stopping the other alliance from completing the task. This gave us more time to watch the capabilities of the robots and focus only on that rather than just trying to get in the way of another bot and stop them from scoring. I think that this forced the robots to evolve and in my opinion this is a good thing. Either way I do still agree that a defense game is more fun to watch.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

Well I understand that people have to worry about durability in the real world, but not worrying about durability let teams do much more creative and productive things. For example they can include more mechanisms on the robot which will teach kids on the CAD/Design side, the mechanical side, and the programming side instead of using a stronger material that weighs more so you won't get damaged.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

Assembly lines, Canada's ISS arm, and 3D printers usually don't have sledge hammers banging on them on a regular basis. This year still required a lot of consideration for durability, particularly on lift mechanisms that could have seen 2000+ cycles between practice and on-field matches this year.

Interactive game mechanics which do not have direct defense include things like tilting a bridge ('13-'14 FTC), etc. I bet if the GDC played Portal and Portal 2, they'd get some good ideas there too.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

Og the caveman understand: not want head break when Grog hit with club.

Durability is without doubt a legitimate engineering challenge, but there are others more exciting to take on and more satisfying to solve. For Inspiration...

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

NO!!!!!

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

It's not just thinking about durability, its about figuring out the best way to score under defense as well.

In 2014, the best finishers were either able to shoot from the base of the low goal even when someone was hitting them or outmaneuver their opponents on the field even when a robot was playing defense on them. Teams like 2451 and 33 experimented with different drive systems to accomplish this and succeeded admirably, while teams like 254 understood that the only place they really needed to finish from was the fender.

My team failed at that analysis and engineering because we figured a long range shot would be good enough to finish without any thought to extra maneuverability or fender shots. We were a decent finisher at the regional level due to our experienced driver, but on the world's stage we needed someone else to finish.

In 2013, the best scoring machines either took into account defense in their design by designing for specific locations on the field to shoot from (generally the front or back of the pyramid) or took full-court shots to minimize the amount of line defense that needed to be played on them. Other teams designed systems to block full-court shooters and still be able to go under the pyramid.

Defense isn't only an engineering challenge in terms of how robust your robot was, but also for the creative engineering to defend better and get around defense.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

Let's reframe.

What is it about the lack of defense in Recycle Rush that upsets so many folks?

My understanding is that it's watchability.

It's difficult to watch two matches at once and that's essentially what we get with Recycle Rush: two alliances that do not interact and very minimally impact the score of the other.

Those qualities that make the match difficult to watch also make the match lose our attention more easily and invite us to call the game boring. It's not that we need to see robots bashing into each other like we did in 2014 to be entertained. Robots didn't bash in 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, etc.

I'm curious. What if Recycle Rush didn't require you to watch two matches at once. What if all 6 robots contributed to the same score? What if we remove the step? What if we added something like assists? - the scoring platforms are blue on one side and red on another; the totes are blue on one side and red on another. A stack's pt value is multiplied if there is a blue tote on a red scoring platform. The teams' score is multiplied if there is an equal number of stacks on each side of the field.

Could a cooperation-based game be exciting to watch? Could Recycle Rush be easily redesigned to become that cooperation-based game? Was the issue in Recycle Rush truly the lack of defense? If FIRST decided to pursue a cooperation-based game in the future, what the requirements of the game be for the community to be receptive? Would it be a positive change for the GDC to pursue a game that encourages alternative avenues for success for teams that struggle with design and engineering concepts without punishing teams that develop a mastery of these concepts?

A reference for cooperative games.

We've seen many games that have invited teams that have established a good design, strategy, and execution to work in isolation of their alliance partners and we have even watched games in which it is strategic for an alliance partner not to play the game. What are the requirements in game design to avoid these situations and these games?

Aside: Would a cooperative robot game invite a high-level of "cheesecaking" by design?

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

Probably what would happen is one robot on each team would end up, cheesecaked or otherwise, rushing into the opponent landfill and tote-burgling a pile of their totes. The other two would put up stacks as before.

I think this would have been much more interesting to watch.

Re: Do we want another game without defense?
 

I don't think that FIRST will make another for at least a few years. There was too much negative feedback from Recycle Rush. Not all parts of the game were bad. Build season was very interesting and the challenge of manipulating the totes was fun to design for. But the noodles were incredibly annoying for a game that was designed to represent a warehouse environment. Also as soon as Week 1 rolled around, unless you were on drive team the events were incredibly boring. There was no fast paced real time scoring, and really good can battles didn't happen till division finals at worlds.